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Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: Female Entrepreneurs in Colombia since 1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2022

Carlos Dávila  and
Andrea Lluch
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Abstract

This article analyzes changes in the composition of Colombia's entrepreneurial class since the 1990s. We identify an increasing heterogeneity among the country's entrepreneurs, marked by greater diversity in gender, social class, and educational level. We also note more diverse regional origins, career trajectories, and political orientations among this group. The increasing number of women entrepreneurs, especially, played a significant role in changing the dynamics of entrepreneurship within the country. To provide some examples, this article looks at the trajectories and career dynamics of a selected group of women business leaders in Colombia. In terms of conceptual framing, this article makes use of the alternative business history (ABH) approach developed to explore emerging markets.

Keywords

EntrepreneurshipColombiaWomenHeterogeneityGenderEmerging Markets
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 96 , Issue 2: Business History around the World , Summer 2022 , pp. 373 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

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References

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22 Giuseppina Maria Cardella, Brizeida Raquel Hernández-Sánchez, and José Carlos Sánchez-García, “Women Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review to Outline the Boundaries of Scientific Literature,” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020): 7.

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27 Mary Yeager, “Gender, Race, and Entrepreneurship,” in The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, ed. Teresa da Silva Lopes, Christina Lubinski, and Heidi J. S. Tworek (London, 2019), 69–92.

28 On Brazil, see Zimmerman, Kari, “‘As Pertaining to the Female Sex’: The Legal and Social Norms of Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,” Hispanic American Historical Review 96, no. 1 (2016): 39–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Chile, see Andrae, Bernardita Escobar, “Women in Business in Late 19th Century Chile: Class, Marital Status and Economic Autonomy,” Feminist Economics 23, no. 2 (2017): 33–67Google Scholar; Escobar Andrae, “Mujeres y negocios en Chile; una exploración al período 1945–1958,” in Empresas y Empresarios en la Historia de Chile: 1930–2015, vol. 2, ed. Manuel Llorca Jaña and Diego Barría Travieso (Santiago, 2018), 91–107; Escobar Andrae, “Mujeres en la empresa de Latinoamérica: una perspectiva de largo plazo,” in Lluch, Monsalve Zanatti, and Bucheli, Historia de Empresas en América Latina, p–p; Autores Varios (Various Authors), “La mujer en la historia empresarial,” Boletín Historia y Empresariado, no. 5 (Aug. 2014): 2–41.

29 In this regard, contemporary studies have pointed out that in Latin America, female entrepreneurs are more concentrated in self-employment and frequently in more vulnerable business sectors. José Anchorena and Lucas Ronconi, “Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Values, and Public Policy in Argentina,” in Entrepreneurship in Latin America: A Step Up the Social Ladder?, ed. Eduardo Lora and Francesca Castellani (Washington, DC, 2014), 105–48; Viviana Vélez-Grajales and Roberto Vélez-Grajales, “The Role of Entrepreneurship in Promoting Intergenerational Social Mobility in Mexico,” in Lora and Castellani, Entrepreneurship in Latin America, 81–104.

30 On Colombia, see Cotera, Elber Berdugo, Mujeres empresarias en Colombia (Bogotá, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berdugo, Elber and Gutiérrez, Jorge Gámez, “Mujeres empresarias de Bogotá,” Revista CIFE: Lecturas De Economía Social 17, no. 26 (2016): 149–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riaga, María C. Ortiz, Rubiano, María E. Morales, and Herrera, Beatriz, Historias de empresarias innovadoras: Historias de empresarias innovadoras en Colombia (Bogotá, 2013)Google Scholar; and Casabianca, Luis H. Gómez and Tcherassi, Silvia, Diseñadora colombiana, empresaria internacional (Bogotá, 2013)Google Scholar, among others.

31 This historical study includes Argentina and Chile; see Andrea Lluch and Erica Salvaj, “Women May Be Climbing on Board, but Not in First Class: A Long-Term Study of the Factors Affecting Women's Board Participation in Argentina and Chile (1923–2010),” Business History (advance online publication, 28 Apr. 2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2063275.

32 See, for example, Barrancos, Dora, Historia mínima de los feminismos en América Latina (Mexico City, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Patricia Pinzón de Lewin and Sonia Cárdenas Salazar, Esmeralda Arboleda: La mujer y la política (Bogotá, 2014).

36 Results of the Quota Act have been mixed and have fluctuated over time. In addition, it is important to note that this law only establishes that women must hold at least 30 percent of top decision-making positions in the public administration, while a 2011 Electoral Reform Law stipulates that women must represent at least 30 percent of the candidates on party lists in elections. In 2014, 59.7 percent of bodies countrywide were in compliance with the legally required percentage of positions filled by women (Administrative Department of Public Functions of Colombia, (2014), Informe sobre la participación femenina en el desempeño de cargos directivos de la administración público colombiana. Cumplimiento de la ley 581 de 2000, Bogota). Meanwhile, March 2022 congressional elections resulted in a Congress that is 28.8 percent women. Of the total 295 seats, including those in the House of Representatives and the Senate, 85 will be held by women, or 30 more than in the previous electoral period (2018–2022). “The New Colombian Congress Will Be Occupied by Almost 30% by [sic] Women,” 17 Mar. 2022, Infobae, https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/03/17/the-new-colombian-congress-will-be-occupied-by-almost-30-by-women/. See María Emma Wills, Inclusión sin representación: La irrupción política de las mujeres en Colombia 1970–2000 (Bogotá, 2007). It is also important to note that only in 1974, President Alfonso López Michelsen promulgated Decree 2820, which abolished potestad marital (the husband's marital rights over the wife and children) and otherwise granted men and women equal rights.

37 Colombia has experienced a sharp increase in women's labor participation, increasing from nearly 40 percent in 1985 to 60 percent in 2017. Julio J. Elías and Hugo Ñopo explain that Colombia has the steepest increase in female participation within the region, having gone from being the country with the lowest female labor participation in the region to having the highest rate in the last three decades. See Elías and Ñopo, “The Increase in Female Labor Force Participation in Latin America 1990–2004: Decomposing the Changes” (working paper, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 2005).

38 Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez, Ligia Alba Melo Becerra, María Teresa Ramírez, and Ana María Tribín Uribe, The Path to Gender Equality in Colombia: Are We There Yet? (Bogotá, 2020).

39 Sumayya Rashid, “A Systematic Literature Review on Female Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies While Reflecting Specifically on SAARC Countries,” in Entrepreneurship and Organizational Change, ed. V. Ratten (Cham, 2020), 4.

40 María Consuelo Cárdenas, Alice Eagly, Elvira Salgado, Walkyria Goode, Lidia Inés Heller, Kety Jauregui, Nathalia Galarza Quirós, Naisa Gormaz, Simone Bunse, María José Godoy, Tania Esmeralda Rocha Sánchez, Margoth Navarro, and Fernanda Sosa, “Latin American Female Business Executives: An Interesting Surprise,” Gender in Management: An International Journal 29, no. 1 (2014): 2–24; María Consuelo Cárdenas, “La conciencia femenina de la mujer colombiana y su liderazgo empresarial,” Revista de empresa: La fuente de ideas del ejecutivo, no. 11 (2005): 24–38.

41 María Consuelo Cárdenas, “La conciencia femenina de la mujer colombiana y su liderazgo empresarial,” Revista de empresa: La fuente de ideas del ejecutivo, no. 11 (2005): 24–38.

42 Mastercard, “Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE) 2018,” n.d., accessed 31 Mar. 2021, https://newsroom.mastercard.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MIWE_2018_Final_Report.pdf.

43 As the World Bank recalls, one of the most pervasive forms of gender discrimination is the law's unequal treatment of women and men. The 2020 edition of Women, Business and the Law shows that in the past two years, forty economies enacted sixty-two legal reforms in total, but the picture varies widely from region to region with scores ranging from 49.6 in the Middle East and North Africa to 94.6 in high-income OECD countries on a scale from 0 to 100. Globally, women are still only three-quarters equal to men on average in the legal areas measured. See World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2020 (Washington, DC, 2020), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/32639 .

44 World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (Geneva, 2019), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf.

45 For a recent literature review, see Jakhar, Renu and Krishna, Chhavi, “Female Entrepreneurship: Opportunities and Challenges (A Literature Review),” Anwesh 5, no. 2 (2020): 38–42Google Scholar.

46 Ahl, “Research on Female Entrepreneurs”; Cardella, Hernandez-Sanchez, and Sánchez-García, “Women Entrepreneurship,” 1557.

47 “They needed jobs; the city had to rebuild itself to move into a new age, rekindling its economy and making it grow. Also, as so many donations were received, it was necessary to use them properly. Aware of this philosophy, I immediately thought of a bank. Popayán needed to have a bank.” Leonor Melo de Velasco, interview by Andrea Lluch, Bogotá, 30 Nov. 2018, Creating Emerging Markets Oral History Collection, Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School (hereafter CEM), https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/interviews/Pages/profile.aspx?profile=lmelo. About this case, see Luis Fernando Molina Londoño and Juan David Rojas Rodríguez, El liderazgo femenino como motor de la inclusión financiera: Historia de la Fundación Mundo Mujer de Popayán (1985–2015) (Popayán, 2021).

48 This dichotomy attempts to measure those pushed into entrepreneurship by a lack of alternatives (“necessity”), compared with those who were pulled into entrepreneurship because of a perceived gap in the market (“opportunity”). Quigley-Jones, Jennifer, “Encouraging Female Entrepreneurship: Lessons from Colombian Women,” Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research 5, no. 2 (2012)Google Scholar, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/archive/volume5issue2/quigley-jones/; Murnieks, Anthony, Klotz, C., and Shepher, Dean A., “Entrepreneurial Motivation: A Review of the Literature and an Agenda for Future Research,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 41, no. 2 (2020): 115–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Fackelmann, Surya and De Concini, Alessandro, Funding Female Entrepreneurs: How to Empower Growth (Luxembourg, 2020)Google Scholar, https://www.eib.org/attachments/thematic/why_are_women_entrepreneurs_missing_out_on_funding_en.pdf.

50 Lilian Simbaqueba, interview by Andrea Lluch, Bogotá, 7 Nov. 2017, CEM, https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/interviews/Pages/profile.aspx?profile=lsimbaqueba.

51 See, for example, Inter-American Development Bank, “Colombia Will Promote the Productivity of Companies with IDB Support,” news release, 12 Dec. 2019, https://www.iadb.org/en/news/colombia-will-promote-productivity-companies-idb-support; and “IDB Invest, Banco Mundo Mujer Promote Credit for Women Microentrepreneurs in Colombia,” IDB Invest, 18 Jan. 2022, https://www.idbinvest.org/en/news-media/idb-invest-banco-mundo-mujer-promote-credit-women-microentrepreneurs-colombia.

52 See, for example, Steve McDonald, “What's in the ‘Old Boys’ Network? Accessing Social Capital in Gendered and Racialized Networks,” Social Networks 33 (2011): 317–30. A growing body of literature shows how networks and networking in general can be advantageous for individuals and highlights that women in business typically enjoy less social capital than men, which makes it difficult for them to develop connections and access the associated resources. See Villesèche, Florence and Josserand, Emmanuel, “Formal Women-Only Networks: Literature Review and Propositions,” Personnel Review 46, no. 5 (2017): 1004–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, among others.

53 “Then, when you manage to overcome many of those things, you manage to grow more fluently. That's why I think mentoring—especially same-gender mentoring—is very valuable … I think that women need more support than anyone to grow as entrepreneurs, and we can do and accomplish a lot.” Simbaqueba interview.

54 Alice H. Eagly and Linda Carli identify the time demands of meeting family responsibilities as one of the biggest barriers facing women. Eagly, and Carli, , Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders (Boston, 2007)Google Scholar.

55 María Consuelo Cárdenas and Verónica Durana Ángel, “La particularidad de la ejecutiva colombiana,” Revista Soluciones de Posgrado EIA 4 (Aug. 2009): 19–43.

56 Research focusing on conscious or deliberate biases toward women, particularly in workplace settings, has led to the study of unconscious bias. On unconscious gender bias (also referred to as implicit or second-generation gender bias), see Susan R. Madsen and Maureen Andrade, “Unconscious Gender Bias: Implications for Women's Leadership Development,” Journal of Leadership Studies 12, no. 1 (2018): 62–67; and Madeline E. Heilman, “Gender Stereotypes and Workplace Bias,” Research in Organizational Behavior 32 (2012): 113–35.

57 In a survey of 162 women and vice presidents in the private sector in seventeen Latin American countries, participants recognized machismo (male chauvinism) in their countries and had suffered wage and promotion. Cárdenas et al., “Latin American Female Business Executives.”

58 As María Emilia Correa expressed, “Being a woman, I have been forced to learn new languages, new interests, new ways to interact with people that are not the typical, socially-prescribed means to do it—seduction or aggression. Striking a balance is a huge challenge.” Correa, interview by Andrea Lluch, Boston, 8 May 2019, CEM, https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/interviews/Pages/profile.aspx?profile=mecorrea.

59 Scholars posit, and evidence indicates, that gender stereotypes influence both men's and women's intentions to pursue entrepreneurship, an achievement-oriented career domain. Fagenson, Ellen A. and Marcus, Eric C., “Perceptions of the Sex-Role Stereotypic Characteristics of Entrepreneurs: Women's Evaluations,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 15, no. 4 (1991): 33–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Sylvia Escovar, interview by Andrea Lluch, Bogotá, 28 Nov. 2019, CEM, https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/interviews/Pages/profile.aspx?profile=sescovar.

61 “In other words, being a woman is much more complex, but being a woman and running a company is even more complex.” Simbaqueba interview. Beatriz Fernández recalls, “Women play many roles, and we have the stamina for everything.” Fernández, interview by Andrea Lluch, Bogotá, 16 May 2018, CEM, https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/interviews/Pages/profile.aspx?profile=bfern%C3%A1ndez.

62 Wang, Gang, Oh, In-Sue, Courtright, Stephen, and Colbert, Amy, “Transformational Leadership and Performance across Criteria and Levels: A Meta-Analytic Review of 25 Years of Research,” Group & Organization Management 36, no. 2 (2011): 223–70Google Scholar.

63 Cárdenas et al., “Latin American Female Business Executives.”

64 Carol Johnson and Blair Williams, “Gender and Political Leadership in a Time of COVID,” Politics & Gender 16, no. 4 (2020): 943–50. For example, see the following recent profile of MIRA politician Ana Paola Agudelo in El Espectador: Philip Garcia Altamar, “‘Hemos sido ejemplo en participación de la mujer’ [We have been an example in women's participation]: Ana Paola Agudelo,” 2 Mar 2022, El Espectador, https://www.elespectador.com/politica/elecciones-colombia-2022/hemos-sido-ejemplo-en-participacion-de-la-mujer/.

65 Fernández interview. About challenging stereotypes, Fernández said, “When I was asked about my profession at MIT, I replied that I was a business manager, that I had attended the university of life and had a graduate degree in marriage and a master's degree in valuing and dignifying women—especially female household heads because Colombia has a woman's face.” See also Jeffrey Timmons and Stephen Spinelli, New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century, 8th. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009).

66 This does not conflict with the fact that female entrepreneurship can be studied as a separate field. Ahl, “Research on Female Entrepreneurs.”

67 For biographical studies on elite entrepreneurs, see Morales, Víctor Álvarez, Gonzalo Restrepo Jaramillo, familia, empresa y política en Antioquia, 1895–1966 (Medellín, 1999)Google Scholar; María Ripoll, Teresa, Empresarios centenaristas en Cartagena: Cuatro estudios de caso (Cartagena de Indias, 2007)Google Scholar; Ripoll, La elite en Cartagena y su tránsito a la República: Revolución política sin renovación social (Bogotá, 2006); Campuzano, Jairo, Juan Gonzalo Restrepo Londoño, 1945–1970 (Medellín, 2013)Google Scholar; Carlos Dávila, “Entrepreneurial Biographies Are Back: Towards an Analytical Framework” (paper presented at the BHC/EBHA conference, Miami, 23–27 June 2015); Francisco U. Zuluaga, Eduardo Mejía Prado, Rosángela Valencia, and Alexander Arias, Manuelita: 150 años (Santiago de Cali, 2015); and de Sanín, María Estella Gómez, John Gómez Restrepo: Visionario y emprendedor (Medellín, 2017)Google Scholar.

68 Berdugo and Gámez Gutiérrez, “Mujeres empresarias de Bogotá”; Berdugo Cotera, Mujeres empresarias en Colombia.

69 This trend will likely continue or increase in the future since enrollment rates of women in both secondary and higher education in Colombia currently exceed those of men, and women have been moving away little by little from highly feminized areas and into previously male-dominated subjects. See Iregui-Bohórquez et al., Path to Gender Equality.

70 Cárdenas and Ángel, “La particularidad de la ejecutiva colombiana.”

71 Berdugo and Gámez Gutiérrez, “Mujeres empresarias de Bogotá”; Berdugo Cotera, Mujeres empresarias en Colombia.

72 Palacios and Safford, Historia de Colombia.

73 Carlos Dávila, “Dominant Classes and Elites in Economic Development: A Comparative Study of Eight Urban Centers in Colombia” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1976); Manuel Rodríguez, El empresario industrial del Viejo Caldas (Bogotá, 1979); Enrique Ogliastri and Carlos Dávila, “The Articulation of Power and Business Structures: A Study of Colombia,” in Intercorporate Relations: The Structural Analysis of Business, ed. Mark Mizruchi and Michael Schwartz (Cambridge, U.K., 1988), 233–63.

74 Melo de Velasco interview.

75 For scholarly histories of these entrepreneurs, see, for instance, Tapias, Carlos, Cinco empresarios de la segunda mitad del siglo XX en Bogotá: Experiencias y realizaciones (Bogotá, 2003)Google Scholar; Fernando Urrea and Carlos A. Mejía, “Innovación y cultura en las organizaciones en el Valle del Cauca,” in Innovación y cultura de las organizaciones en tres regiones colombianas, ed. Fernando Urrea et al. (Bogotá, 2000), 39–80; Álvaro Ferro Osuna, Perfil biográfico de un empresario inmigrante a Colombia: Antonio Paccini (1931) (Bogotá, 2007); Aranda, Ana Milena, Transporte de carga en Colombia: Empresarios y estrategias, 1985–2005 (Bogotá, 2008)Google Scholar; Ospina, José M., Molina, Luis F., Pérez, Gabriel, and Dávila, Carlos, Historia de la investigación de mercados en Colombia: Trayectoria empresarial de Napoleón Franco (Bogotá, 2014)Google Scholar; and Berdugo Cotera, Mujeres empresarias en Colombia. Their shortcomings notwithstanding, they provide raw materials for research.

76 Simbaqueba interview.

77 “Por segundo año consecutivo Sylvia Escovar se ubica dentro del top 10 de líderes empresariales con mejor reputación en Colombia,” País Minero, 21 Oct. 2020, accessed 23 June 2022, https://paisminero.co/rse-colombiana/rse-petrolero/22180-por-segundo-ano-consecutivo-sylviaescovar-se-ubica-dentro-del-top-10-de-lideres-empresariales-con-mejor-reputacion-en-colombia.

78 Correa interview.

79 Cosmina L. Voinea and Cosmin Fratostiteanu, Corporate Social Responsibility in Emerging Economies (New York, 2019).

80 Fondo para la Acción Ambiental y la Niñez, “Green and Inclusive Forest Business in Colombia: A Sustainable REDD+ Facility with Climate, Social and Biodiversity Benefit” (Concept Note, Green Climate Fund, 4 June 2020), https://www.greenclimate.fund/document/green-and-inclusive-forest-business-colombia-sustainable-redd-facility-climate-social-and.

81 Fernández interview.

82 Rettberg, Angelika, Construcción de paz en Colombia (Bogotá, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrés Barrios, Juana García, Juan Carlos Montes, Angelika Rettberg, and David Schnarch, “Sector privado y reintegración: Una mirada a la inclusión de excombatientes en la actividad productiva en Colombia,” in Excombatientes y acuerdo de paz con las FARC-EP en Colombia: Balance de la etapa temprana, ed. Erin McFee and Angelika Rettberg (Bogotá, 2019), 115–33.

83 The title of a recent book on the fight and survival of women forcefully displaced in several Colombian regions—El estado siempre llega tarde (The state always comes belatedly)—is illustrative of the phenomenon of state failure in controlling the territories. Ripoll, Julieta Lemaitre, El estado siempre llega tarde: la reconstrucción de la vida cotidiana después de la guerra (Bogotá and Buenos Aires, 2019)Google Scholar.

84 Rodríguez, Manuel, Nuestro planeta, nuestro futuro (Bogotá, 2019), 221–22Google Scholar. For some cases of “green entrepreneurship” see , “El Desarrollo Sostenible en la Práctica (Sustainable Development in Practice), 405–544.” in Gobernanza y gerencia del desarrollo sostenible, ed. Manuel Rodríguez and María Alejandra Vélez, (Bogotá, 2018).

85 In her interview, Melo describes in detail how difficult it was to operate in her region: “Back then, in the 1980s, Colombia struggled with guerrilla attacks, and it was hard to go to small towns. Guerrilla members would stop you on the road.” Melo de Velasco interview.

86 Escovar interview.

87 Correa, interview.

88 Palacios, Marco, ¿De quién es la tierra? Propiedad, politización y protesta campesina en la década de 1930 (Bogotá and Mexico City, 2011)Google Scholar.

89 From 1958 to 2012, 5 million Colombians were forcibly displaced from 6.6 million hectares of land. By 2015, the number of internally displaced people (IDP) registered with the Colombian government was 5.859 million, giving Colombia the largest IDP population in the world after Syria. About 58 percent of these IDPs are female. Virginia M. Bouvier, “Gender and the Role of Women in Colombia's Peace Process” (UN Women background paper, United Nations, New York, 4 Mar. 2016).

90 Simbaqueba interview.

91 García, David Bojanini, Nicanor Restrepo Santamaría, 1941–2015 (Medellín, 2017)Google Scholar.

92 Bértola, Luis and Ocampo, José Antonio, The Economic Development of Latin America since Independence (Oxford, 2012), 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 For the Colombian case, see Omaida Hernández, “Recuperar el territorio,” in Colombianos que cambian el mundo, ed. Roberto Gutiérrez (Bogotá, 2013), 177–94; and Franco, Francia Carranza, Construcción de Estado, construcción de ciudadanía: Arme y desarme en Colombia (Bogotá, 2021)Google Scholar. On Argentinean piqueteros, see Pérez, Marcos, Proletarian Lives: Routines, Identity, and Culture in Contentious Politics (Cambridge, U.K., 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a broader study (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico), see Stahler-Sholk, Richard, Vanden, Harry E., and Kuecker, Glen David, Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy (Washington, DC, 2008)Google Scholar.