Our aim is to better understand access to finance and its role in the development of female-
run enterprises in Nigeria. In such a way, we can better understand the gendered context of
entrepreneurship and the implications for business growth. The paper adopts an
interpretivist paradigm, to explore the social reality within which entrepreneurship is
enacted. Qualitative data are interpreted from ten Nigerian entrepreneurs, five males and
five females. We find that, though structural support may be apparent, the entrepreneurial …