The Liminality of Maternity Leave: Entrepreneurial Motherhood as a double gestation

TY - CONF

T1 - The Liminality of Maternity Leave

T2 - Diana International Research Conference

AU - Green, Kai Roland

AU - Frost, Shuang

AU - Neergaard, Helle

N1 - Conference code: 16

PY - 2024/6/1

Y1 - 2024/6/1

N2 - Our paper investigates why and how new motherhood serves as a liminal experience— a temporal and spatial breakage with both social tension and transformative potential— that triggers changes in women’s perspective towards and adoption of entrepreneurship. Existing literature has studied the overarching push-and-pull influence of motherhood on women’s entrepreneurial activities, yet we know little about the “moment” when motherhood triggers and transforms entrepreneurial actions.This paper employs an inductive ethnographic approach to zoom into women entrepreneurs’ experience around maternity leave. Our aim is to investigate if, why, and how institutionalized breakages from “normal life” influence women’s entrepreneurial choices. We theorize motherhood as a “liminal experience” (Söderlund and Borg, 2018), when the self and social position can be remade “betwixt and between” the familiar and the unknown (Turner 1967), with external limits lifted, social structures suspended, and the future rendered uncertain. Recent scholarship in management and organizational studies has drawn heavily upon liminality, when uncertainty about identity status prompts experimentation, learning, and the creative reimagining of the self (Henfridsson & Yoo, 2014, Howard-Grenville et al., 2011; Ibarra & Obodaru, 2016). Some scholars address motherhood as a liminal period in women’s careers, with fewer discernable ‘boundaries’ and less linearity than men’s typical ‘organizational’ careers (Ladge et al., 2012; Lewis et al. 2015). But few studies investigate the intersection between motherhood and entrepreneurship through a liminality framework.

AB - Our paper investigates why and how new motherhood serves as a liminal experience— a temporal and spatial breakage with both social tension and transformative potential— that triggers changes in women’s perspective towards and adoption of entrepreneurship. Existing literature has studied the overarching push-and-pull influence of motherhood on women’s entrepreneurial activities, yet we know little about the “moment” when motherhood triggers and transforms entrepreneurial actions.This paper employs an inductive ethnographic approach to zoom into women entrepreneurs’ experience around maternity leave. Our aim is to investigate if, why, and how institutionalized breakages from “normal life” influence women’s entrepreneurial choices. We theorize motherhood as a “liminal experience” (Söderlund and Borg, 2018), when the self and social position can be remade “betwixt and between” the familiar and the unknown (Turner 1967), with external limits lifted, social structures suspended, and the future rendered uncertain. Recent scholarship in management and organizational studies has drawn heavily upon liminality, when uncertainty about identity status prompts experimentation, learning, and the creative reimagining of the self (Henfridsson & Yoo, 2014, Howard-Grenville et al., 2011; Ibarra & Obodaru, 2016). Some scholars address motherhood as a liminal period in women’s careers, with fewer discernable ‘boundaries’ and less linearity than men’s typical ‘organizational’ careers (Ladge et al., 2012; Lewis et al. 2015). But few studies investigate the intersection between motherhood and entrepreneurship through a liminality framework.

KW - Women entrepreneurs

KW - maternity leave

KW - Liminality

KW - motherhood

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 1 June 2024 through 3 June 2024

ER -