Dr. Susan Clark Muntean: Women's History Month Instagram Live Series March 17
Dr. Susan Clark Muntean
Today it was an honor to have Dr. Susan Clark Muntean take the time to jump on an Instagram Live with me to continue our Women’s History Month daily celebration. We talk briefly about her new book, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Gender Perspective published via Cambridge University Press and celebrate the great billionaire entrepreneur that leads with empathy, Ms. Oprah Winfrey.
“Based on extensive fieldwork, this book demonstrates how gender is an organizing principle of entrepreneurial ecosystems and makes a difference in how ecosystem resources are assembled and how they can be accessed. By bringing visibility to how ecosystem actors are heterogeneous across identities, interactions and experiences, the book highlights the role and complexity of individual, organizational, and institutional factors working in concert to create and maintain gendered inequities. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems provides research-driven insights around effective organizational practices and policies aimed at remedying gendered and intersectional inequalities associated with entrepreneurship activities and economic growth. Proposing a typology of four ecosystem identities, it highlights how some might be more amenable and organized towards gender inclusion and change, while others may be much more difficult to change, reorganize and restructure. It offers scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers insights about gender in relation to analyzing entrepreneurial ecosystems and for fostering inclusive economic development policies.”
Before I share my takeaways of our brief conversation, I must share her VERY IMPRESSIVE bio:
“Susan Clark Muntean, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. Her research strives to improve our understanding of entrepreneurial support organizations, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and corporate and family business, particularly with respect to governance, inclusion, politics and gender equality. Recognitions for this research include a grant award from The Kauffman Foundation, the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship's ('USASBE') best paper in entrepreneurship and ethics award in 2017, USASBE's best paper in family business honorable mention in 2014, and best paper in women's entrepreneurship at the International Council for Small Business in 2011."
She collaborated with primary author Banu Ozkanzanc-Pan, who is a “Professor of Practice in Engineering and Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at Brown University. Banu is co-editor-in-chief of Gender, Work & Organization. Her research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has been awarded grants from The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and INBIA/JP Morgan Chase. Recently, she testified at the US Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship to speak about the importance of women and minority investors and entrepreneurs. She is a member of CNBC's Disruptor fifty Advisory Council, a global group of fifty-five leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship.”
I cannot wait to dive into their findings and encourage all women who are trying to make change join me as I suspect we have a ton to learn from their work in part made possible by the Kauffman Foundation.
This kind of work really excites me because it’s thorough, nuanced, expansive, and reveals possibilities and opportunities for how we as a society can move forward together better tapping into both the masculine and feminine energies within ourselves and in collaboration between the genders.
Be sure to read Dr. Muntean’s profile for Hatch Innovation Hub, and I encourage all of you to take her words to heart this Women’s History Month:
“Imagine...a feminist form of capitalism and of democracy based upon the humanistic values of empathy, care, and support.”