Breaking Barriers: Scaffolding Social‐Symbolic Work for Women’s Economic Empowerment

Journal article

This study advances the understanding of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) in non‐Western contexts by theorizing how social‐symbolic work facilitates empowerment despite entrenched institutional and cultural constraints. Drawing on a qualitative study into the establishment of Kuwait’s first women’s business incubator, we explore how female intrapreneurs engaged in three interrelated forms of social‐symbolic work – on selves, organizations, and institutions – to foster women’s entrepreneurship. These scaffolded efforts culminated in the creation of a new social‐symbolic object: the Al Salam business incubator. This incubator functioned not only as a physical space for women to launch and grow businesses, but also as a potent symbol of institutional transformation within a culturally traditional environment. We propose a process model of scaffolding social‐symbolic work, demonstrating how catalytic partnerships and dynamic interdependencies across multiple levels of social life can collectively dismantle systemic barriers to female entrepreneurship. By conceptualizing scaffolding as a temporal and integrative process, this study contributes to WEE scholarship and deepens theoretical insights into social‐symbolic work by revealing how diverse forms of work interlock to shape new identities, practices, and institutional arrangements.

Authors: Abumuamar, M; Reinecke, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Journal of Management Studies
• Publication date: 2025-11-17
• DOI: 10.1111/joms.70028
• EISSN: 1467-6486
• ISSN: 0022-2380
• Language: English
• Keywords: social‐symbolic work; women’s economic empowerment; non‐Western context; institutional change; entrepreneurship