Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2020, 56(5): 571-598 | DOI: 10.13060/csr.2020.041

Gender inequalities within copreneurships in the Czech and Slovak Republics

Marie Pospíšilová¹, Nancy Jurik², Alena Křížková¹, Gray Cavender²

¹ Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i., Praha

² School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, USA

Research on women’s entrepreneurship often fails to uncover the gendered way in which women’s roles and responsibilities are portrayed and it neglects the connections between ideas about what roles women play in business and in the family and the social context in which these ideas are embedded. This article focuses on the gender inequalities that are reflected in the construction of men’s and women’s roles and responsibilities in copreneurships (romantic couples in business together) and how those constructions are embedded in societal and the family context. By drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews with copreneurs in Czechia and Slovakia and interviewing each partner separately we are able to analyse how roles are constructed and the justifications given for them as well as identifying how the partners’ constructions of these roles clash. We show how gender inequalities are created and presented as logical and self-evident. By studying copreneurial couples we can examine both their professional and private lives and reveal reveal whether they interact in conflicting or complementary ways. The main contribution of the research is that it provides insight into the seemingly gender-neutral constructions of copreneurial roles, and it employs a methodological approach that has the capacity to identify differences and similarities in copreneurs’ viewpoints. The article highlights the ways in which copreneur constructions reflect the unique contexts of Czechia and Slovakia, a region that to now has been largely unexplored.

Keywords: copreneurship, gender, context, post-socialism, entrepreneurship

Received: September 29, 2020; Revised: October 6, 2020; Accepted: October 15, 2020; Published: November 30, 2020Show citation