Using crowdsourcing to overcome barriers to women entrepreneurship

Abstract

This chapter presents crowdsourcing as a novel way of overcoming barriers facing women entrepreneurs, offering alternatives to conventional solutions. The study analyzes three barriers to women entrepreneurship: access to financing, access to specific management knowledge, and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). For each barrier, a different form of crowdsourcing is proposed: crowdfunding, crowd wisdom, and crowdfunded media, respectively. Using these crowdsourcing tools, women entrepreneurs can overcome major difficulties when starting businesses.