Introduction: Despite growing numbers of female entrepreneurs, gender disparities in venture capital funding persist. Social media offers entrepreneurs opportunities to signal legitimacy, yet an ongoing debate suggests that such signals may be evaluated differently depending on gender.


Purpose: Drawing on signaling theory and role congruity theory, we examine how male and female entrepreneurs' dominance displays and network size on social media jointly shape investors' funding decisions. Specifically, we develop nuanced arguments about how digital signals are interpreted in the context of gender stereotypes, thereby rewarding female founders who combine high dominance expression with a large network on social media.


Method: We used archival data from 634 U.S.-based tech startups that raised Series A-D funding in 2021, which we combined with founders' communication on X (formerly Twitter) using a natural language processing model to assess dominance displays. We are planning to complement the field data with a 2 (gender: female vs. male) x 2 (dominance: high vs. low) x 2 (network size: high vs. low) experiment, including investment professionals who will be asked to allocate funding to systematically varied founder profiles.


Results: Our archival data study shows that female founders secure less funding than male founders when their network size is small, but this gap reverses when women combine large networks with high dominance displays. Male founders, in contrast, are penalized for dominance when their network size is large. Findings from the experimental study will further substantiate and extend these insights.


Conclusions: Our research contributes to understanding when dominance displays may help female founders overcome gender-based disadvantages in funding contexts, while potentially backfiring for male founders. The findings advance our understanding of signaling theory in the context of entrepreneurship and gender stereotypes, offering actionable insights for founders navigating investor evaluations and for investors aiming to overcome bias.