'The study of female entrepreneurship traditionally has been inspired by gender equality issues. Female entrepreneurs were assumed to experience gender-related discrimination and to experience more difficulties when starting up and running a business than their male counterparts. .Today research and policy have been more and more fuelled by the idea that female entrepreneurs are important for economic progress. .This thesis incorporates six separately readable studies on gender differences in entrepreneurship, spanning different aspects of entrepreneurship at different levels of analysis, including the individual, the organization and the environment.'