Of resistance to patriarchy and occupation through a virtual bazaar: an institutional theory critique of the emancipatory potential of Palestinian women’s digital entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT This study explores how institutional contexts and digital technologies influence women’s digital entrepreneurship and emancipation potential in the conflict-laden, Arab country-specific context of Palestine. Drawing on insights from Institutional Theory and emancipation literature, we capitalize on in-depth, semi-structured online interviews with Palestinian women entrepreneurs. Accordingly, we present empirical evidence demonstrating that while digital technologies enabled Palestinian women to launch their enterprises, the unsupportive institutional contexts confined them to home-based, feminine enterprises and subjected them to a toll of additional challenges, health issues and hostility. Our findings challenge the claim that digital entrepreneurship emancipates women by showcasing the context-specific nature of emancipation. This paper advances entrepreneurship research by demonstrating how Arab women’s digital entrepreneurship unfolds at the intersection between emancipatory enablers and unique, conflict-laden regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional pillars.