This study goes beyond mainstream entrepreneurship research and explores the agency of women entrepreneurs in shaping social and institutional contexts and gender norms in China. Drawing on a qualitative explorative research design, the study builds on extensive fieldwork and qualitative data collection in Chinese megacities. Through inductive data analysis, the study derives a theoretical framework for the agency of Chinese women entrepreneurs in constructing contexts and gender in a bottom-up process. The bottom-up approach shows how strategies of women entrepreneurs (micro level) intentionally or unintentionally challenge features of the social and institutional contexts of the family (meso level), society (macro level), and the government (macro level). During this process, women entrepreneurs also (re-)define traditional gender norms. The study contributes to pluralism in theory-building by offering fresh insights into context and gender construction in women’s entrepreneurship activities in a non-mainstream research setting.
