Building social capital to escape poverty: an intersectionality perspective on women’s entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid

Despite the abundance of entrepreneurship research on the benefits of social capital (SC) for new businesses, little attention has been devoted to its role in women’s entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid (BOP). Drawing on SC theory and intersectionality, this study examines the mechanisms through which BOP women entrepreneurs develop and access SC. Using inductive qualitative analysis, we identify three interrelated mechanisms through which such entrepreneurs develop SC: crossing traditional boundaries, navigating within the constraints of gendered roles, and developing an entrepreneurial ‘sisterhood’. Furthermore, we identify multiple benefits of using these approaches to develop and access SC, both for the entrepreneurs and for their communities. By doing so, our study responds to calls for exploring strategies and means that entrepreneurs in poverty use to engage with and alter complex institutional contexts. In addition, this study advances the scholarly debates on how entrepreneurship is shaped by gender and social inequalities. Finally, our study enhances the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial SC by identifying the context-specific, idiosyncratic mechanisms through which women entrepreneurs at the BOP develop SC.