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The purpose of this study is to explores the extent to which local institutional forces affect female entrepreneurial venture performance. Drawing upon a unified theoretical framework of social cognitive and institutional perspectives, the authors scrutinize the complex interplay among institutional support, entrepreneurial cognitions and entrepreneurial success.

Based on a unique sample of 202 female entrepreneurs in 30 provinces throughout Japan, this paper grounded social cognitive theory and attempted to clear the relation between women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy and venture performance empirically by statistical analysis.

The findings of structural equation modeling indicate that women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy is a strong and useful mediator of the effect of informal institutional support on venture performance. Unexpectedly, formal institutional support shows no correlation with entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

This study proposes that perceived social legitimacy may lead to increased entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thereby enhancing venture performance. This finding can clarify the institutional force pathways to foster entrepreneurial confidence.

This study contributes to the field of female entrepreneurship by examining institutional antecedents of women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Focused on the case of Japanese female entrepreneurs, this study is unique and valuable.

By drawing upon social cognitive and legitimacy perspectives, this study aims to explore the role of perceived social legitimacy as an informal institutional force that moderates the effects of female entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy and entrepreneurial tenacity on venture growth.

This study uses a data set of 308 Japanese female entrepreneurs, who are a subject of limited extant scholarly attention, to test the hypothesised relationships empirically.

Consistent with the unified framework, the study was able to identify that the acquisition of social legitimacy required by female entrepreneurs serves as a crucial safety net under which entrepreneurial self-efficacy and tenacity can significantly affect venture growth.

The study highlights that high levels of entrepreneurial traits alone are not necessarily sufficient to guarantee women’s venture growth. In doing so, this study stimulates the development of theory on the complementary role of the social legitimacy of entrepreneurship in fueling and mobilising the female entrepreneurs’ cognitive resources as the key to venture growth in the Japanese context.

Policymakers should be dedicated to implementing more gender-specific policies designed to continually cultivate women’s cognitive attributes in tandem with the promotion of social awareness to embrace entrepreneurship as a promising career option.

The originality of this study lies in stimulating a debate on the underlying heterogeneity of female entrepreneurs in the performance outcomes of two entrepreneurial cognitive attributes. By integrating the concept of perceived social legitimacy, the study can respond to Miao et al. (2017), who sought further examination of untested boundary conditions in the cognitive characteristics-venture growth equation.

This article seeks to theorize and empirically examine the conditional mechanisms through which entrepreneurial legitimacy determines the success or failure of new ventures by building upon Zimmerman and Zeitz's (2002) causal process model of legitimacy.

We gathered cross-sectional data from 266 Japanese new venture owners running their businesses across a variety of sectors and empirically examined whether, how and when legitimacy positively affects new ventures' performance by employing the SPSS PROCESS macro for moderated mediation analysis.

The results indicate that rich access to a pool of valuable resources fully mediates the positive effects of legitimacy on new venture growth. Furthermore, this study offers robust empirical evidence that prior entrepreneurial experience and competitive intensity as the internal and external contingency factors significantly moderate the indirect effect of legitimacy on new venture growth through resource accessibility.

Although our analysis provides clear support for the view that important resources for new venture performance are gained through legitimacy, it does not offer precise clarifications for the type and sources of legitimacy and for the strategies that could be deployed to achieve legitimacy. Future studies should clearly distinguish tangible assets (e.g. financial resources) from intangible assets (e.g. tacit knowledge, networks and reputation) in terms of resource accessibility. Therefore, it should be worth scrutinizing the multiple dimensions of resources as potential mediators of the legitimacy-new venture growth relationship in greater depth.

From a policy perspective, this study suggests that a special emphasis needs to be placed on designing and carrying out policies aimed at increasing the visibility and credibility of entrepreneurship as a positive career path since public acceptance of entrepreneurship is essential to new venture growth. Furthermore, it is logical to conclude that achieving greater legitimacy is a pivotal strategic tool not only to overcome resource barriers but also to maximize a probability of survival, specifically for those entrepreneurs without prior experience and those operating in a fiercely competitive market environment.

Unlike previous studies that have mostly presented the direct effect of entrepreneurial legitimacy on venture outcomes (Capelleras et al., 2019; Kibler and Kautonen, 2016; Pindado and Sánchez, 2017), our research empirically identified the potential complexities inherent in this relationship by performing a conditional indirect effect analysis.