Resumo

Over 88.4% of Brazilian entrepreneurs started a business to earn a living due to a scarceness of jobs. Among female entrepreneurs, this rate is higher (90.8%). On the other hand, only 62% of Brazilian entrepreneurs claim to have the skills and knowledge necessary to undertake (GEM, 2020). However, some authors (ÁCS; SZERB, 2009) claim that this number is even higher in developing countries, as entrepreneurs believe that entrepreneurial skills are obtained through experience and trial and error process, rather than receiving an entrepreneurship education (KARLSSON; MOBERG, 2013).

As they are new actors in the context of entrepreneurial ecosystems, whose performance influences thousands of people, in this research, we aim to identify the motivations of the influencers. thus, this research can be summarized in the following question: What are the motivations of SMIs when creating content about female entrepreneurship?

The literature indicates that the entrepreneurs’ education level contributes to the success of their respective business (ELMUTI; KHOURY; O’MRAN, 2012). Formal education, especially, post- secondary education, plays a vital role in learning and developing entrepreneurial skills, which are requirements for the creation, operation, management and success of the new business, especially innovative business (MAYHEW et al., 2012; WADEE; PADAYACHEE, 2017). Other authors (GIMMON, 2014; KUBBEROD; FOSSTENLOKKEN; ERSTAD, 2018) argue that entrepreneurial mentoring programs for people of different age.

For our empirical exercise, we employ data collected from questionaries with 12 SMIs to assess the motivations of influencers and discuss whether they are motivated by monetary gains or a sorority feeling. The results show that SMIs create content to help women to undertake and female entrepreneurs to expand their own business. However, a part of them seeks to earn money through entrepreneurship education, offering courses, training and e- books at relatively affordable prices.

In this research, we evaluated the motivations of SMIs that create digital content about female entrepreneurship, especially to identify whether these SMIs were motivated by purely financial gains or by a feeling of the sorority. To that end, we collected responses from 12 SMIs that operate mainly on Instagram. Our empirical findings show that all SMIs create content to help other women to undertake. In addition, there is an evident motivation to establish sorority among women, a fact that leads them to incorporate ideas of female empowerment in their speeches about entrepreneurship

Disregarding the quality of the content of each influencer, we can say that SMIs satisfy the demand that should be satisfied by formal education institutions, as the enrollment in HEIs’ entrepreneurship courses is significantly lower than the number of followers of each influencer. Among the possible reasons for this relationship, we highlight the fact that SMIs courses have low cost and short duration, in addition to free content. While HEIs offer courses at relatively higher price and lasting at least 2 years. This fact makes it impossible to enroll women who dedicate part of their time…

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