Women entrepreneurship in high-tech sectors: the case of Ankara

In the recent years, the number of women starting and owning a business has increased dramatically and women entrepreneurs have begun to enter high technology sectors instead of traditional ones. As the recent studies on the entrepreneurship focus especially on male entrepreneurs and as the women entrepreneurs are regarded as performing in traditional sectors, the researches about women entrepreneurs taking place in non traditional high tech sectors carry great importance. With in this scope, the study examines the women entrepreneurs acting as the owner or partner of the firms and having a high education level in high tech sectors in Ankara. The sectoral and spatial differences of women owned high-tech firms are compared in technology development zones which are found to be the agglomeration spaces of high-tech firms and out of these zones. In the study, the in-depth interviews realized with female entrepreneurs are evaluated under four parts: characteristics of the entrepreneurs, the firm quality and the performance of the firm, the location choices of the firm and the reactions of the business environment to women entrepreneurs.