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The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth barriers of women’s home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 22 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

Business growth barriers of women were categorized in a multi-level framework of individual barriers (micro), business-related barriers (medium) and environmental barriers (macro). The most important micro-level barrier is lack of skills and experience, while the financial barriers identified as the most business-related one and, finally, the problems of having work interactions with men is the most important environmental barrier women-owned HBBs mentioned.

The results of this paper can help policy-makers better understand growth barriers for women-owned HBB and attenuate these barriers by developing purposeful supportive growth policies that are commensurate with the barriers. Also, HBB women owners themselves could better concentrate on removing barriers by deepening their understanding of their business growth barriers.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the paper results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth motivations of women owning and managing home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 20 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

The business growth motivations of women owning and managing HBBs were categorized in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Results show that women owning and managing HBBs are motivated to growth their businesses by intrinsic motivations including need for achievement, need for independence, proving competency and socio-cultural concerns. Also, they are motivated by some extrinsic motivations including financial issues, fame, positive feedback from others and the problems of working at home.

Given the importance of entrepreneurial growth, the findings provide additional insight into growth motivations of women entrepreneurs.

The results of this study can help policymakers to develop purposeful growth policies for women’s HBBs that are commensurate with the motivations.

Also, women owning and managing HBBs themselves could better concentrate on enhancing business growth by deepening their understanding of their business growth motivations.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the study results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs. Also, this paper contributes to theory on the motivation for entrepreneurship and to research on growth motivation.

Does gender stereotype endorsement play a role in the customer's cognitive evaluation of new ventures owned by women entrepreneurs? The authors’ cross-cultural study integrates literature on gender stereotype endorsement and cognitive legitimacy to address this research question.

The authors use a two-study experimental design and analyze our results by cultural context to test our hypotheses: one drawn from college students in Iran and one from working professionals in the United States.

The authors’ comparative results suggest that the evaluation of feminine versus masculine characteristics of women entrepreneurs varies depending on the evaluator's (in this case the customer's) endorsement of gender stereotypes and the cultural context. Specifically, the authors found that a new venture owned by a woman entrepreneur who displays feminine characteristics is perceived as more legitimate when the customer endorses feminine stereotypes, regardless of the country.

The authors’ research contributes to the literature on cognitive legitimacy and women's entrepreneurship by unveiling the cultural conditions and factors that allow women entrepreneurs to benefit from acting in a stereotypically feminine way. The authors use a binary approach to gender. Future research should extend our findings to also include a non-binary approach.

This study contributes to women's entrepreneurship research by unraveling the implications of gender stereotype endorsement, legitimacy and culture in customer evaluation of ventures owned by women.

Despite the expansion of women's entrepreneurial activities and its positive effects on the economic development of societies, women still face numerous difficulties in starting and running a business compared to men, especially in developing countries because of gender discrimination in the field. The cultural context in societies is a significant factor affecting the status of entrepreneurship among the Iranian women. Therefore, the present research is an attempt to identify the challenges affecting entrepreneurship among Iranian women. The results obtained from 30 semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs and women with entrepreneurial roles showed that sociocultural challenges faced by women entrepreneurs are classified into: “the society's perception of entrepreneurship among women,” “women's social security,” and “common family norms governing a society.”