The development and validation of the female entrepreneurs’ internet use scale
摘要
Women entrepreneurs often face manifold barriers in the offline entrepreneurship process, yet Internet technologies have the potential to help them overcome these obstacles by offering a more egalitarian and open virtual environment for conducting business activities. However, there has been a lack of assessment tools specifically designed to measure Internet use among this population. This series of studies aimed to address this gap by developing the Female Entrepreneurs’ Internet Use Scale (FEIUS) using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In Study 1, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Chinese female entrepreneurs (M age = 40.07, SD = 8.45). Grounded theory analysis revealed that female entrepreneurs’ Internet use comprised three components: Internet marketing, Internet purchasing, and Internet learning. Study 2 involved the development and validation of the FEIUS with two different samples of women entrepreneurs. In Phase 1 (N = 266), an initial 23-item pool was created and subjected to exploratory factor analysis, resulting in a 14-item scale with three subscales corresponding to the identified components. In Phase 2 (N = 312), confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the three-factor model provided the best fit to the data. The subscale scores exhibited convergent and discriminant validity, while the total scale scores were positively correlated with entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial passion. Overall, the FEIUS proved to be reliable and valid within the Chinese context. This newly developed scale provides researchers and practitioners with a valuable tool for assessing business-oriented Internet use among women entrepreneurs, offering insights into their online behaviors and potentially informing strategies to support their entrepreneurial endeavors.