I’ve written a few times about the poor state of female entrepreneurship, with women significantly under-represented in the entrepreneurial ranks. Aside from being unfair, this is also bad for entrepreneurship, as data does suggest that female-led businesses can do better than their male-led peers.

Research from Kennesaw State University supports this notion and argues that differences in the way men and women think may give female entrepreneurs an advantage.

Entrepreneurial decision making

The researchers quizzed nearly 1,000 entrepreneurs from three countries to understand how they make business decisions. The results suggest that female entrepreneurs tend to be more resourceful and flexible in their decision-making, which results in more success.

“We found women more often use effectual logic, which is taking the resources you have and using them creatively to achieve success,” the researchers explain. “That’s different and more flexible than causal logic, where you start out with a goal and then create a plan to achieve it.”

Of course, this is seldom reflected in the support and backing female entrepreneurs receive, with various studies demonstrating the lower rates of investment from across the VC community in female-led businesses, despite the success they so often obtain.

“Women tend to get far fewer investment dollars than men,” the authors continue. “While there are a host of reasons why this might be, our study implies that investors should focus less on the founder’s gender aspects, and more on how they make decisions.”

The paper found that the link between business success and effectual thinking is less pronounced in countries with high gender inequality. In these countries, feminine perspectives tend to be devalued. For countries with more gender equality, women were more able to capitalize on and demonstrate the benefits of effectuation.