Introduction

Entrepreneurship has become an important engine to increase employment, promote technological innovation, and enhance economic growth (Coduras et al. 2016; De Vita et al. 2014). New ventures, especially new technology-based companies, play a major role in advancing economic prosperity and maintaining economic stability (Hampton et al. 2009). However, compared with traditional industries, the survival rate of new technology-based businesses tends to be lower, as tech companies face greater levels of uncertainty (Song et al. 2010a). Moreover, research demonstrates that female-led enterprises are far weaker than male-led enterprises in the same industry regarding scale, profit, and development prospects (Coleman 2007; Morris et al. 2006). The barriers of financing and networking faced by women in the process of entrepreneurship are two important factors affecting the performance of new ventures. Some studies show that women are often discriminated against in bank loans (Xu et al. 2016) and that they find it harder to obtain loans and are often asked for higher interest rates (Muravyev et al. 2009). In addition, female entrepreneurs are excluded from many important social networks (Ahl 2006), causing them often to face a shortage of resources. At present, most studies focus on men’s entrepreneurial activities (e.g., Bruni et al. 2004), and little research investigates the situation of women’s entrepreneurship (Boden and Nucci 2000). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the determinants of survival and the general development of technology start-ups led by women.

Resource-based theory (RBT) holds that the main competitive advantage of an enterprise is its access to valuable resources (Barney 1991). Thus, entrepreneurial resources are a vital factor in the survival and development of new companies, and these resources have a direct impact on the performance of new businesses (Timmons 1999). However, due to a certain lack of legitimacy and long-standing reputation, new companies often find it difficult to obtain the resources that they need from external investors (Song et al. 2010a). Thus, a shortage of resources is a major constraint for many businesses; this is especially true for women-led technology firms. In fact, one important reason for the high failure rate of female tech entrepreneurs is that the shortage of resources for their technology start-ups caused by gender discrimination (Xu et al. 2016) and networking (Ahl 2006) limits their ability to make rapid technological changes and adapt quickly to the marketplace needs (Patzelt et al. 2008).

Resources are composed of both tangible and intangible assets (Michalisin et al. 1997). In this article, resource shortages refer to a lack of tangible resources. In enterprise resource theory, tangible resources can result in a competitive advantage (Lippman and Rumelt 2003), enabling a firm to achieve a better business performance (Čater and Čater 2009). First, tangible resources, such as land and equipment (Ma 2000), can provide basic survival and production support for female-led start-ups. Second, tangible resources, such as financial resources, can allow enterprises to eliminate their dependence on external capital (Audretsch and Lehmann 2004) to cope more easily with changes in the external environment and unknown difficulties (Patzelt et al. 2008). As a more general resource type, financial resources can easily be converted into many types of resources (Wiklund and Shepherd 2005), which can effectively alleviate the shortage of resources faced by female entrepreneurs. Therefore, a shortage of tangible resources will have a negative impact on female tech entrepreneurs. To enrich the application of resource dependence theory in the field of entrepreneurship, this paper empirically examines the influence of resource shortages on female tech entrepreneurs.

Enterprise reputation is one type of intangible asset that is both valuable and difficult to imitate (Money and Hillenbrand 2006). Thus, reputation can have major strategic value to enterprises, allowing them to achieve better financial performance (Roberts and Dowling 2002). Some literature reveals that the improvement of new enterprises’ reputation has a positive impact on their performance (e.g., Dunbar and Schwalbach 2000; Roberts and Dowling 2002), as companies with a good reputation take less time to gain a competitive advantage and greater output. Black et al. (2000) believe that companies’ reputation not only contributes greatly to their performance but also is seen as a strong advantage by investors. However, the general lack of performance records (Song et al. 2010a) and asymmetric information (Carter et al. 2003) often lead female-run technology start-ups to face the problem of a lack of reputation, which potentially brings about their downfall.

This paper focuses on new ventures led by women, because there are many differences between female and male entrepreneurs. First, in terms of entrepreneurial motivation, studies show that most female entrepreneurs are motivated to balance their relationship between work and family (Shelton 2006), while men tend to increase their income and improve their social status (Aidis et al. 2007). Second, in terms of risk preference, female entrepreneurs have a higher level of risk aversion than male entrepreneurs (Watson and Newby 2005), and they are more willing to participate in low-investment and low-profit economic activity, which is also an important reason for the gender differences in entrepreneurial performance (Barber and Odean 2001). Third, in terms of entrepreneurial results, new ventures led by women tend to grow at a slower pace and have lower corporate performance (Powell and Eddleston 2013). In addition, gender discrimination is an important reason for female entrepreneurship differing from male entrepreneurship (Xu et al. 2016). In view of the differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the above aspects, we focus on female entrepreneurs as the object of our study.

As female tech entrepreneurs face the problems of a shortage of resources and a lack of industry reputation, many will seek to establish various dependent relations with other organizations for the survival and development of their new ventures. Here the government can be an important partner for women-led enterprises to establish greater social relationships and to obtain the institutional support that they need (Peng and Luo 2000). In this way the government can play a decisive role in the formulation of “game rules” and the allocation of scarce key resources (Tian et al. 2009). Previous work shows that the institutional environment has a decisive effect on entrepreneurial behaviour (e.g., Besley 2015), yet there are few empirical studies examining the impact of institutional support as it specifically pertains to female technology start-ups. Accordingly, this paper empirically examines the impacts of resource shortages and the lack of a long-standing reputation on female tech entrepreneurs in the context of institutional support.

Based on the literature gap discussed above, this paper attempts to answer a number of pertinent questions. First, what is the relationship between the shortage of resources and lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of their new ventures? Second, can institutional support improve the performance of women-led technology start-ups? Third, can institutional support moderate the relationship between the shortage of resources and lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of their new ventures? Based on the survey data of 316 technology start-ups run by women, this paper aims to make two primary contributions to the literature. First, we empirically examine the impact of the shortage of resources and the lack of long-standing reputation for female tech entrepreneurs as they pertain to the performance of their new ventures, which extends the application of resource dependence theory in the field of female entrepreneurship. Second, we empirically examine the moderating effects of institutional support on the relationship between the shortages of resources and reputation and the performance of new ventures, which further enriches the entrepreneurship research in the context of transition economies.

Theories and hypotheses

Shortages of resources for female tech entrepreneurs

Resources are broadly defined as all types of assets that can help enterprises to conceive and implement competitive and efficient strategies (Amit and Schoemaker 1993). Valuable resources can provide enterprises with sustainable competitive advantages. Some scholars suggest that rich resources can provide strong support for organizations’ creative actions (Amabile et al. 1996) and that the relationship between resources and organizational creativity is influenced by leaders’ and employees’ behaviour (Sonenshein 2014), while other scholars argue that the pressure and urgency brought by resource shortages can also contribute to creative behaviour (Baker and Nelson 2005). At present, a shortage of resources is an important issue for business entrepreneurs, and this is especially the case for female entrepreneurs, who often face some degree of gender discrimination (Brush 1992). Resource shortages mean that enterprises must deal with resource constraints, which limit their ability to meet the needs of their products and services (Ray et al. 2010). Tangible resources are those assets that are relatively easy to measure, such as finance, land, or factories (Grant 1991). Here there are two important categories of tangible resources: physical resources and financial resources (Grant 1991). The resources that we discuss in this article are mainly tangible resources.

Resources are essential for enterprises to carry out their production and business activities, and the effective allocation and combination of the basic resources will help them to break through the constraints of the external environment (Penrose 1959). More specifically, a combination of unique resources is critical for high-tech companies to obtain a competitive advantage. Therefore, tangible resources play an important role in the development of tech enterprises. However, new ventures run by women generally face the problem of a shortage of resources. Generally speaking, female entrepreneurs tend to have fewer resources available to them (Cliff 1998), and they face greater obstacles in terms of the acquisition of the needed resources (Carter et al. 2003). Further, resource shortages not only restrict the growth of their enterprises but also force them to adopt entrepreneurial activities (Chandler and Hanks 1994). As the innovation behaviour and strategic orientation behaviour of enterprises lead them to consume a large amount of resources (Barney 2001), if female tech entrepreneurs were able to have many resources at their disposal, they would have a wider variety of strategic choices. These women would also be able to strengthen the ability of their enterprises to take risks, create innovations, and take actions. Inversely, a shortage of resources for female entrepreneurs will restrict the development and performance improvement of their enterprises (Powell and Eddleston 2013).

As important components of tangible resources, financial resources have significant effects on the performance of new companies (Moreno and Casillas 2008). Extensive research shows that adequate financial resources for new ventures allow many companies to achieve more advantages and stronger operations than their competitors (Lee et al. 2001). More financial resources can help technology enterprises to invest more in research and development, production, and patenting activities (Satta et al. 2016). Technological innovation is the key for high-tech enterprises to gaining a competitive advantage (Das and Teng 2000). Abundant financial resources not only are positively related to corporate R&D activities (Himmelberg and Petersen 1994) but also provide a sufficient financial guarantee for the innovation activities of high-tech enterprises (Patzelt et al. 2008), thus enhancing their innovation performance (Rothaermel and Deeds 2004). However, female tech entrepreneurs tend to face greater financing obstacles than their male counterparts (Coleman and Robb 2009) owing to the uncertain prospects and information asymmetry of female-led businesses (Carter et al. 2003). Female entrepreneurs tend to receive less financial capital, which is one of the most important reasons why their companies develop more slowly than those run by men (Alsos et al. 2006).

Therefore, we hypothesize:

  • H1: The extent of the resource shortages for female tech entrepreneurs will weaken the level of new venture performance.

The lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs

Although many scholars put forward the concept of “enterprise reputation” in their research (Barnett et al. 2006; Mahon 2002; Wartick 2002), there is no commonly accepted definition of this concept (Barnett et al. 2006). Fombrun (1996) argues that enterprise reputation is the overall attractiveness of a company’s past actions and future prospects for all stakeholders compared with its leading competitors. From the perspective of organizational psychology, some scholars indicate that enterprise reputation is the cognitive and emotional tendency of stakeholders (Cable and Graham 2000). Moreover, some researchers emphasize that enterprise reputation is the judgement and evaluation of stakeholders based on the different expectations of an enterprise (Lewellyn 2002; Whetten and Mackey 2002). In accordance with the above views, this paper defines enterprise reputation as the cognitive and affective evaluation of all the stakeholders of the characteristics of the enterprise based on both the future expectations and the behaviour of the enterprise in the past. New ventures, since there is a shorter history of analysis and a lack of long-term credit records in the market, face a reputation shortage that can have serious adverse effects (Song et al. 2010a).

Enterprise reputation, as a type of intangible asset that is both valuable and difficult to imitate, is an important determinant of business success (Hillenbrand and Money 2007). Enterprise reputation can produce strategic value for a particular company, helping it to achieve lasting financial performance (Flatt and Kowalczyk 2011). An enterprise with a good reputation can enhance its customers’ confidence in its products and services (Walsh et al. 2009), because the business can win a price advantage and a higher purchase rate by cultivating customer loyalty, which, in turn, improves its financial performance (Dunbar and Schwalbach 2000). Moreover, research shows that enterprises at the top of the reputation ranking can produce high-quality, innovative products and provide better services, allowing their products to be more competitive in the marketplace and thus bringing about a better income market position (Vergin and Qoronfleh 1998). In contrast, the performance of enterprises at the bottom of the reputation ranking is often poor, owing to a mass loss of its outstanding talent and customers. Due to the general discrimination against female entrepreneurs (Aidis et al. 2007), as well as the often-lower profit margins and higher failure rate of women-run businesses (Carter et al. 1997), new ventures by women generally face greater problems pertaining to reputation. Roberts and Dowling (2002) note that enterprises’ reputation has a very strong influence on their profit margin, so enterprises with good reputations are able to spend less time gaining a greater competitive advantage and higher levels of output (Awang and Jusoff 2009). Therefore, a lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs has become one important reason for the often-poor performance of new women-led ventures.

In addition, a good reputation can attract more investors, which allows companies to obtain financing in a shorter time (Van den Bogaerd and Aerts 2015). Investors are willing to put their money into enterprises with a good reputation (Gatzert 2015), because they think that those businesses will bring them higher profits. Srivastava et al. (1997) find that the risk of investing in a business with a strong reputation is smaller than that of investing in a company with a balanced financial performance. Similarly, Brown (1998) indicates that businesses with a weaker reputation will lead investors to believe that they have greater potential for disaster. Therefore, the general lack of reputation for female entrepreneurs creates situations in which female-led enterprises face higher barriers when trying to obtain external financing and are forced to accept more stringent supervision (Klapper and Parker 2011). This seriously hinders the growth of women’s new business ventures.

In summary, reputation plays an important role in adjusting the relationship between an enterprise and its stakeholders (Gatzert 2015), and a good reputation helps an enterprise to become competitive and improve its performance (Awang and Jusoff 2009). When new women-led ventures are faced with the problem of a lack of reputation, they can lose the trust of both the customers and the stakeholders alike. Ultimately, this can pose a fatal threat to their survival and development.

Therefore, we hypothesize:

  • H2: The extent of the lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs will weaken the level of new venture performance.

Institutional support

As both the operation and the development of an enterprise are rooted in the local institutional environment, enterprises must strive to make their own behaviour consistent with the dominant social rules, trust system, and values to gain organizational legitimacy and to seek institutional support (Deephouse and Carter 2005; Oliver 1991). Here institutional support refers to a variety of different types of policy support that government departments and administrative regulatory agencies provide for enterprises, including funding, information, technology, licenses, operational autonomy, and other forms (Li and Atuahene-Gima 2001). The government plays a key role in institutional formulation. In recent years, as an important part of the institutional environment, institutional support has had an important impact on entrepreneurship (Tian et al. 2009). Overall, institutional support can effectively help enterprises to cope with the uncertainties of their environments (Li and Atuahene-Gima 2001), reduce their external dependence (Guo et al. 2014), allow them to gain access to valuable resources (He and Baruch 2010), and improve the management state of the business through organizational legitimacy (Delmar and Shane 2004).

In addition, resource dependence theory emphasizes that organizations, while in the process of operation, will be subject to the constraints of other organizations (Medcof 2001). Accordingly, organizations will seek to establish a dependent relationship with other organizations to obtain the resources that they need. Due to the fact that some specific resources are in the hands of the government, enterprises must seek to establish social relationships with the government to obtain the necessary resources and to reduce their dependence on key external resources (Peng and Luo 2000). This is particularly important for China’s enterprises, because, in the context of a transitional economy, enterprises are closely linked to the government (Tjosvold et al. 2008). Therefore, in China enterprises obtain a large number of resources and information via institutional support (Hillman 2005).

Moreover, some literature shows that there is a close link between the government and enterprises’ performance (e.g., Li and Zhang 2007; Peng and Luo 2000; Zhang and Li 2008). As enterprises can obtain a variety of valuable resources and information from the government, this institutional support creates a potential competitive advantage for those companies (Guo et al. 2014; Li et al. 2008). In the context of transitional economies, the government has the right to control and allocate key resources. This is because the market mechanism and the system are not perfect in these cases. Under these conditions the institutional support of government departments and the administrative supervision of institutions become very important to enterprises’ operation. Furthermore, the institutional support can make up for the negative impact of the imperfect system on enterprises (Xin and Pearce 1996). Institutional support not only helps to reduce operational risk but also alleviates the problem of resource scarcity. Therefore, institutional support is an important strategic asset for enterprises (Li and Atuahene-Gima 2001). Overall, institutional support can enable new ventures to obtain abundant external resources, thus improving their performance.

Therefore, we hypothesize:

  • H3: The extent of the institutional support for female tech entrepreneurs will strengthen the level of new venture performance.

The moderating effects of institutional support

Institutional support is part of the external environment that enterprises deal with that directly affects their ability and performance (Oliver 1997). Previous studies point out that the institutional environment is important for “resources” and as a “source” for enterprises to gain a competitive advantage (e.g., Peng et al. 2009). New ventures with high levels of institutional support can usually obtain more information, technology, capital, licenses, and other related resources (Bowman and Hurry 1993), which can make up for their resource shortages (Yuan and Chen 2015). For instance, enterprises can easily access valuable industry policies and information in response to changing external market conditions (Lester et al. 2008). This allows female tech entrepreneurs, for instance, to be able to make and adjust major strategic decisions in time to avoid significant losses caused by the failure of information through the accurate perception of market changes.

Previous work on the subject reveals that innovation capability is closely related to government support (Rasiah et al. 2016). By establishing close political ties with the government, female tech entrepreneurs not only gain access to critical and rare resources to compensate for the problem of a shortage of resources but also gain core competitive advantages (Lazzarini 2015; Xin and Pearce 1996). This is because this type of enterprise can turn these specific resources into innovative products, expand their market share, and improve their performance. Furthermore, institutional support is an important external institutional resource for enterprises, so it can promote the rapid development of female-led technology start-ups that face a shortage of resources by improving the overall business environment (Lin 2014).

In addition, previous studies reveal that institutional support has a critical impact on the survivability and reputation of organizations (Zimmerman and Zeitz 2002). Institutional support can promote enterprises’ behaviour in line with social norms and values, increase their operating legitimacy, and enhance their evaluation and reputation (Deephouse and Carter 2005). Businesses with a high level of social responsibility can actively improve their competitive advantage and legitimacy (Saeidi et al. 2015). To obtain greater legitimacy, new businesses need knowingly to fulfil their social responsibilities, require stakeholders to identify their value, improve their reputation (Brammer and Pavelin 2006; Carroll and Shabana 2010), and promote their performance in the marketplace (Deng et al. 2013; Moser and Martin 2012). In addition, institutional support provides new companies with a large number of key and scarce resources (Bowman and Hurry 1993), and these resources can effectively alleviate the resource shortage faced by enterprises (Peng and Heath 1996) and enhance their performance. Not surprisingly, previous research indicates that enterprises’ financial performance is an important factor for their reputation (Roberts and Dowling 2002). In turn, enterprises’ reputation can effectively promote their performance (Hillenbrand and Money 2007).

Overall, institutional support can help new ventures to obtain large amounts of resources and information more easily. The integration and utilization of these resources and information can improve their operating conditions and market position, increase the degree of trust by society, make up for a lack of reputation, and ultimately promote their performance.

Therefore, we hypothesize:

  • H4a: The negative relationship between the shortage of resources for female tech entrepreneurs and the new venture performance will be weaker when the institutional support is greater.

  • H4b: The negative relationship between the lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs and the new venture performance will be weaker when the institutional support is greater.

Based on resource dependence theory, we construct the conceptual model shown in Fig. 1. It illustrates that there is a close, negative relationship between the shortage of resources and lack of reputation of female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of new business ventures. As one important way for female tech entrepreneurs to obtain external resources, institutional support can play a positive role in promoting the performance of their new companies. Female-led technology start-ups utilizing institutional support can obtain a significant amount of valuable information and resources, thus offsetting the adverse effects of resource and reputation shortages.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Conceptual model

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Methods

Data source

The data in this study were collected from new female-led tech ventures using the survey method. Here “female entrepreneurs” refers to female founders or female founding team members of new companies. There are some reasons why we focus our study on female entrepreneurs. First, there are some significant differences between female and male entrepreneurs (Brush 1992). Compared with male entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs have unique characteristics, such as a lack of informal support (Klapper and Parker 2011). Second, female-led enterprises are often inferior to businesses run by men in their scale, growth rate, and performance (Powell and Eddleston 2013). Third, in the financing process, female-led enterprises obtain loans with greater difficulty, which seriously hinders their development and expansion (Muravyev et al. 2009). Thus, the specific characteristics of female entrepreneurs force their companies to face more complicated and changeable environments.

The sample was chosen according to the gender (female), age of the companies (below 8 years),Footnote 1 and industry sector of the various enterprises (high-tech industries). In this study all the respondents were either female founders or female founding team members of new companies. First, 30 new businesses were selected to undergo a pre-test. Following this stage, we revised and improved the questionnaire based on the responses received in the pre-test. Next, a total of 1000 questionnaires were sent to respondents via e-mail and field survey. Finally, we received 316 valid responses, with a recovery rate of 31.60%. Of the responding ventures, enterprises that had been established for less than 5 years accounted for 54% of the total sample, small and medium-sized enterprises accounted for 98% of the total sample, the electronic and communication sector accounted for approximately 33% of the total sample, and the proportion of enterprises with R&D expenditures above 3% accounted for about 98% of the total sample.

Moreover, common method bias (CMB) is likely to occur when respondents complete a questionnaire. Hence, we used Harman’s single-factor test to examine the CMB. The results indicated that the cumulative variance contribution rate of the first unrotated factor was only 38.10%, revealing that CMB was not a concern (Huang 2016).

Measures

Building on the findings of Newbert et al. (2008) and according to the characteristics of female entrepreneurs, resource shortages were measured by six items. Next, in accordance with Castro et al. (2006) and Saeidi et al. (2015), the lack of reputation was measured through six indicators. Then, in line with both Guo et al. (2014) and Li and Atuahene-Gima (2001), institutional support was measured using five indicators. All these items were rated on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 = ‘completely agree’ to 7 = ‘completely disagree’ (see Table 1). Moreover, in line with both Ma and Tan (2006) and Zhan and Chen (2013), new ventures’ performance was measured using four indicators. All the items were rated on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 = ‘very poor’ to 7 = ‘very great’ (see Table 1).

Table 1 Variables and measurements
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In addition, certain variables that may affect the performance of new ventures were used as control variables in this study. These control variables included venture age, size, industry, annual sales, R&D intensity, and ownership. Venture age was measured by the number of years since the company was established (Cai et al. 2015). The number of employees employed by the enterprise was used to measure venture size. The industries that were included in this study could be placed into four main categories: (a) electronics/communication, (b) biology and medicine, (c) new energy/advanced materials, and (d) other technology-based industries. R&D intensity was measured using the annual R&D expenditure divided by the total sales. Ownership included three types: sole proprietorship, partnership enterprise, and limited liability company.

Results

Reliability and validity

Reliability is used to measure the degree of consistency of the results. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used as an indicator to test the internal consistency of the scale of this research. Table 2 indicates that the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for resource shortages, lack of reputation, institutional support, and new venture performance were all greater than 0.7, demonstrating that the scale had an acceptable level of reliability.

Table 2 Reliability and validity of constructs
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Construct validity refers to the items in the scale used to measure the extent of the potential theoretical structure (Churchill 1979). To ensure the accuracy of the results, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) values and Bartlett’s test were used as two indicators to measure construct validity. Table 2 indicates that the KMO values of all the variables were greater than 0.7, and the Bartlett’s spherical test for all the items was at a significance level of 0.000, which indicates that the scale had acceptable construct validity. In addition, the average variance extracted (AVE) of all the latent variables was greater than 0.5 (del Mar Fuentes-Fuentes et al. 2015), and the composite reliability (CR) of all the variables was higher than 0.8, which reveals that the convergent validity of the scale was good. Furthermore, the results in Table 3 show that the square root of the AVE was larger than the correlation coefficient between all the variables, which demonstrates that the scale had good discriminant validity. Therefore, the scale met all of the requirements of our research.

Table 3 Results of correlation analyses
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Correlation analysis

Correlation analysis is usually tested by the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results of the descriptive statistics and the correlations between the variables are shown in Table 3, including the means (M), standard deviations (SD), and simple correlation coefficients. It illustrates that the resource shortages (r = −0.682, p < 0.01) and the lack of reputation (r = −0.654, p < 0.01) for female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of new ventures are significantly negatively correlated, which is consistent with H1 and H2. In addition, institutional support is significantly positively correlated with new venture performance (r = 0.481, p < 0.01), which supports H3. Because the simple correlation relationship between the variables was easily influenced by multiple factors, to find the real relationship between entrepreneurial social networks, technological innovation, and new venture performance, regression analysis was also required.

Hierarchical regression for the total sample

In line with previous studies, hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to validate our theoretical model (Almobaireek et al. 2016). Table 4 shows the results of this analysis.

Table 4 Results of the hierarchical regression analysis
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Model 1 provides the results of the control variables, and we can see that none of the variables besides venture size were significant. Model 2 introduces the independent variables into model 1. From Table 4 we can see that model 2 fits very well (R 2 = 0.528, F = 49.160). It show that the resource shortages for female tech entrepreneurs had a significant negative impact on new venture performance (β = −0.429, p < 0.01), which is consistent with previous work that demonstrates that resources are an important factor in improving enterprise performance (Haber and Reichel 2005). Thus, H1 is supported. Therefore, to enhance the performance of new ventures, start-ups should strengthen the acquisition of resources and form unique advantages and abilities of internal development through the storage and absorption of their resources (Hitt et al. 2001).

In addition, our results indicate that a lack of reputation has a negative impact on new venture performance (β = −0.342, p < 0.01). Thus, H2 is supported. This finding reveals that a new venture’s poor reputation could damage its performance. This may be because a poor reputation will reduce customers’ confidence in the company’s products and services (Roberts and Dowling 2002), making it more difficult for the enterprise to obtain and retain outstanding talent (Vergin and Qoronfleh 1998).

Model 3 introduces institutional support into model 2. The results show that institutional support has a positive effect on new venture performance (β = 0.220, p < 0.01). Thus, H3 is supported. This finding indicates that government support behaviour, such as providing financial support and giving licensing rights, can improve the performance of enterprises (Li and Atuahene-Gima 2001). Thus, female tech entrepreneurs should try to strengthen their links with the government and pay close attention to changes in government policy.

To eliminate the influence of multicollinearity, the data were processed by central processing before testing the moderating effects. Model 5 introduced interaction terms (RES × INS, REP × INS) into the foundation of model 4. The results show that institutional support negatively moderates the relationship between the resource shortages for female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of new ventures. Hence, H4a is supported. Figure 2 shows the moderating role of institutional support in the relationship between the resource shortages for female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of new ventures: the more institutional support a female tech entrepreneur receives, the weaker the effects of resource shortages on the new venture’s performance. However, the results also reveal that the coefficient of the interaction term of the lack of reputation and new venture performance was not significant. Thus, H4b is not supported.

Fig. 2
figure 2

The moderating role of institutional support in the relationship between the shortage of resources and the performance of new ventures

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To verify whether multicollinearity exists among the variables, we conducted a multicollinearity test. The results in Table 4 indicate that the variance inflation factor (VIF) values in each regression model are less than 3.00, revealing that no significant multicollinearity existed in these models. In addition, a summary of the hypotheses is presented in Table 5.

Table 5 Hypotheses summary
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Hierarchical regression for the subsamples

To examine further the impact of corporate age on our findings, we divided the overall sample into two sub-samples based on the age of the new ventures: less than 3.5 years and from 3.5 to 8 years. The regression results of the two sub-samples are shown in Tables 6 and 7. From Table 6 we can see that resource shortages are significantly negatively related to the performance of start-ups (β = −0.666, p < 0.01) and that institutional support plays a negative role in the relationship between them (β = −0.249, p < 0.01), which is consistent with the regression results of our total sample. However, it seems that a lack of reputation has no significant impact on the performance of new ventures. As an intangible asset (Hillenbrand and Money 2007), the establishment of a corporate reputation is a long process. The corporate reputation has not been established at this stage (Ebbers and Wijnberg 2012) due to the relatively short establishment time and the lack of adequate credit records in the market (Song et al. 2010a). Therefore, it is difficult for the corporate reputation at this stage to exhibit a significant impact on performance. In addition, the results show that institutional support has no significant impact on the performance of new ventures. Although institutional support can effectively help companies to overcome resource shortages and gain a competitive advantage (Yuan and Chen 2015), it is difficult for it to take effect in a short time. Thus, institutional support does not play a significant role in the early stages of entrepreneurship.

Table 6 Regression results for subsamples (Venture age < = 3.5 years)
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Table 7 Regression results for subsamples (3.5 years < Venture age < = 8 years)
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Table 7 presents the regression results of the ventures aged between 3.5 and 8 years. The results show that the resource shortages (β = −0.360, p < 0.01) and the lack of reputation (β = −0.426, p < 0.01) have a significant negative impact on the performance of female-led start-ups. Moreover, institutional support not only can improve the performance of new ventures (β = 0.228, p < 0.01) but also has a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between the resource shortages and the performance (β = −0.103, p < 0.1). All of these are consistent with the results of our overall sample. Overall, based on the regression results of the two sub-samples, we can see that, along with the increase in the venture age, the impact of reputation and institutional support on corporate performance will gradually be strengthened.

Discussion and conclusion

Readily available resources and good reputations have positive effects on promoting the expansion of technology companies’ production and their position in the marketplace. However, female tech entrepreneurs generally face more hurdles, including the problem of a greater shortage of resources and a lack of a long-standing reputation due to the liability of newness. Based on the survey data of female technology start-ups in China, this study examined the relationship between the shortage of resources and the lack of reputation of female tech entrepreneurs pertaining to the performance of new ventures. It also examined the moderating effects of institutional support among these relationships using the method of hierarchical regression analysis. Our results demonstrate that both the resource shortages and the lack of reputation for female tech entrepreneurs have a negative effect on the performance of new ventures. Therefore, new ventures that are run by women should attempt to improve their ability to access resources and break the shackles of resource shortages (Bouncken 2004; Witt 2004). At the same time, female tech entrepreneurs need to pay attention to corporate social responsibility and to satisfy customer requirements to enhance the reputation of their new business ventures, as the general lack of reputation of female entrepreneurs seriously hinders their success. Our findings also indicate not only that institutional support has a direct role in promoting the performance of female-led technology start-ups but also that it weakens the negative relationship between the resource shortages of female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of their new companies. These findings reveal that institutional support could reduce women’s dependence on the external environment and ease the problems of both the shortage of resources and the lack of reputation by providing these tech entrepreneurs with large amounts of valuable resources. Therefore, these enterprises should strengthen their links with the government (Peng and Luo 2000; Tjosvold et al. 2008) and aim to obtain institutional support to compensate for resource shortages. Moreover, greater institutional support should be given to female tech entrepreneurs to balance the greater challenges that they face as they engage in new tech ventures.

At the same time, our study revealed that institutional support did not improve the relationship between the lack of reputation of female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of their new companies. There are two possible reasons for this result. First, enterprise reputation, as an intangible asset (Hillenbrand and Money 2007), takes a long time to improve. For this reason the impact of institutional support on enterprises’ reputation needs a long time to take effect. Second, female tech entrepreneurs who have obtained institutional support may not fulfil the role of corresponding social responsibility. Satisfying the need for social responsibility can improve enterprises’ image in the heart of consumers, the government, and other stakeholders, thus forming their reputation (Carroll and Shabana 2010; Hutton et al. 2001). On the contrary, enterprises that fail to fulfil the social responsibility role can cause serious damage to their reputation, thus offsetting the positive role of institutional support for these new businesses.

Theoretical contributions

The theoretical contributions of this study are reflected in two primary ways. First, from the perspective of resource dependence theory, this paper explored the relationship between the shortage of resources and the lack of a long-standing reputation of female tech entrepreneurs and the performance of new business ventures. As discussed elsewhere, entrepreneurial resources have an important impact on entrepreneurial performance (Colombo and Grilli 2005; Eckhardt and Shane 2003). Although some studies indicate that resources (e.g., Galbreath 2005; Lippman and Rumelt 2003) and reputation (e.g., Dunbar and Schwalbach 2000; Roberts and Dowling 2002) have important roles in promoting firms’ performance, little research examines the relationship among resource shortages, female tech entrepreneurs’ reputation, and the performance of new ventures. Start-ups often find it difficult to survive, resulting in high failure rates (Bhide 1994). This is largely due to resource constraints and a lack of reputation. Therefore, from the perspective of female tech entrepreneurs, this paper discussed these impacts, further enriching resource dependence theory in female entrepreneurship literature.

Second, we introduced institutional support into the mix of resources for female tech entrepreneurs and new ventures’ performance, which further improves the theoretical framework of entrepreneurial resources in transition economies. The behaviour of an enterprise must be rooted in the local institutional environment and must be in line with that environment’s social rules and values (Deephouse and Carter 2005). To cope with the uncertainty of the enterprise environment (Li and Atuahene-Gima 2001), businesses should construct a close link with the government to obtain institutional support. In the context of economic transformation in China, the impact of institutional support on enterprises is particularly important (Peng and Heath 1996). As institutions are imperfect and the market system is weak (Peng et al. 2009), enterprises in transitional China have to face a highly uncertain market. Thus, institutional support can help them to obtain scarce strategic resources (Bowman and Hurry 1993), provide them with more external environment information (Palanisamy 2005), and effectively enhance their innovation capacity (Mahmood and Rufin 2005). However, until now the effect of institutional support on technology start-ups run by women has not been examined, even though research shows that institutional support plays a decisive role in the success of businesses (Besley 2015). This paper empirically examined the direct and moderating effects of institutional support on female technology start-ups in transitional China, further enriching the entrepreneurship research in the context of transition economies.

Managerial implications

Our findings have important implications for female entrepreneurs. Female tech entrepreneurs should attempt to enhance their ability to obtain resources, as resource shortages have been proven to affect the performance of new ventures negatively. First, as social networks can be seen as an effective way to obtain entrepreneurial resources, companies should constantly try to improve their network capacity to solve the problem of resource constraints. Second, enterprises should enhance their ability to obtain market information (Kelley et al. 2006; McAfee et al. 2012), because market information can strengthen the ability of entrepreneurs to serve their customers (Danneels 2002; Shane 2000) and help them to save the acquisition cost of information and resources (Song et al. 2010b). Finally, learning ability has an important effect on the accumulation of resources, and knowledge gained through learning can enhance the absorption and transformation of enterprise resources.

From this work we also see that corporate social responsibility can enhance enterprises’ reputation and strengthen their competitive advantage (Hillenbrand and Money 2007; Hutton et al. 2001). Due to a lack of reputation, which has seriously hindered the success of many women-led technology start-ups, female entrepreneurs should pay special attention to environmental protection to improve their companies’ reputation. In addition, female entrepreneurs should be especially cognizant of the continuous need to meet their customers’ demands and enhance their loyalty.

Finally, based on the positive role of institutional support in female-led technology start-ups, we offer the following two suggestions. First, in terms of institutional support, the government should develop effective entrepreneurial policies, such as increasing entrepreneurship education, reducing entry and exit barriers, and providing business and financial support for new ventures. Second, female tech entrepreneurs should pay attention to the laws and regulations regarding entrepreneurship to obtain more policy resources, accomplished by building close links with the government.

Limitations and further research

Although some meaningful conclusions have been drawn in this paper, there were some limitations. First, due to the lack of a mature scale regarding resource shortages and a lack of reputation, the scale used in this paper was based on the improvement of a previously related scale. Therefore, the reliability and validity of the scale need to be tested further. Second, the data of this study were collected only in China, which is a developing and emerging country, and hence the findings may be country-specific. Future research should be extended to more developed countries to test our results under different conditions. Third, our work only focused on the role of the lack of reputation of female tech entrepreneurs, whereas future research could examine the role of other variables, such as legitimacy. In summary, these limitations should be examined and these ideas pursued, as they are critical to further research on this topic. Most specifically, we believe that the possible generalization of our findings to other economies is a particularly interesting avenue to pursue in future research.