Our research merges role congruity and implicit theory perspectives to advance academic understanding of gender bias in evaluations of entrepreneurs. We predicted that the link between people’s attitudes regarding women in authority and their subsequent gender-biased entrepreneur evaluations are significantly stronger for entity theorists (those who believe attributes are fixed) relative to incremental theorists (those who believe attributes are malleable). Data collected from young adults in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim, yet constitutionally secular democratic, country that serves as a geographic and cultural bridge between Europe and Asia, were used to test our predictions. Across three linked experimental studies, we gain a more sophisticated understanding of factors that predict biased evaluations of female entrepreneurs by assessing the moderating role of implicit person theories in the link between people’s gender role attitudes and gender-biased entrepreneur evaluations.
