Against the Norm? Entrepreneurial Human Capital, Gender and Resource Mobilization in Sub-saharan Africa

This study examines how entrepreneurial human capital affects the resource mobilization process in new ventures, specifically the likelihood of using informal ties (i.e. family and friends) in their hiring process. Building on human capital arguments, we theorize that the higher the entrepreneur's formal educational attainment, the greater the likelihood that they will go against the norm of hiring through informal ties. Given the centrality of gender in the relationship between entrepreneurship and family embeddedness, we evaluate the moderating role of gender on the relationship between formal education and the hiring process. Empirical findings from logistic regression analyses of 1,114 new ventures in Nigeria provide broad support for the theoretical framework. These findings contribute to our understanding of individual-level forces that influence the persistence of, or decreased reliance on, informal institutions in entrepreneurial activity in Sub-Saharan Africa.