A co-authored study examining female entrepreneurs in Egypt has earned a Goodman School of Business professor a top award at a prominent international conference.

Management Professor Eugene Kaciak’s study won the Best Paper Award out of 280 entries at the Global Innovation and Knowledge Academy conference in Lisbon, Portugal, June 30.

Co-authored with Dianne Welsh (University of North Carolina-Greensboro, N.C.), Rania Shamah (Suez University, Egypt) and Frank Hoy (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Mass.), the study looks at what factors contribute to the success of female entrepreneurs in Egypt and how the country can support them.

Since 2013, Kaciak has worked closely with Welsh to study female entrepreneurs in many countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Morocco, Turkey, Brazil and China.

An internationally recognized scholar in entrepreneurship, Welsh has a passion for studying female entrepreneurs and saw the benefit of partnering with Kaciak, an expert in data analysis, in reviewing the data she collected.

Kaciak, who joined Goodman in 1989 after earning an MSc and a PhD in Economics at Warsaw School of Economics and a Doctor Habilitatus degree at Kozminski University, was able to use a sophisticated analysis technique for the study that he has used in the past for categorical data.

In previous studies, he found that both human (age and education, training and skill level) and social capital (connections, relationships and familial support) play a role in entrepreneurial success.

However, Kaciak’s team found that in the context of Egypt, a country that has experienced social unrest, human capital alone influences an entrepreneurial firm’s performance.

“Normally, both capitals matter in terms of affecting performance, but in Egypt, I didn’t find that,” Kaciak said.

“I found that human capital does matter but not social capital. It means that in this time of revolution and turbulence, where people are forced to move, they take their education with them but not their connections. We found out that these connections don’t matter and they are not related to performance.”

To provide the best support to their entrepreneurs, Kaciak’s team recommends that governments should prioritize investments in education over fostering entrepreneurial networks.

“I would say to authorities in countries which have negatively experienced social unrest, revolution movement and wars, authorities should focus on women entrepreneurs’ human capital, investing in education, management skills and so on,” Kaciak said. “Do not think about investing in social capital because it would not have an impact.”

Kaciak’s research has followed the entrepreneurship theme since 2013.

His most recent paper, focused on female entrepreneurs in Brazil, found it better  for women to borrow money to start a business rather than using personal savings. It also found entrepreneurs should only include family members in their operation if those individuals have been involved from the beginning of the business.

Another recent paper looks at how different levels of economic development affect female entrepreneurs.

Inspired by numbers and the stories they can tell, Kaciak said he’s become hooked on the topic of female entrepreneurship since beginning his work with Welsh.

Since 2013, he has contributed to 13 published papers and five conference proceedings.

His impressive track record in the 2014-15 academic year in particular, with several papers published all within the theme of female entrepreneurs, has earned Kaciak a departmental research award from Goodman’s Finance, Operations and Information Systems department this month. The award will be presented at a research celebration event on Aug. 24 at 4 p.m. in the Scotiabank Atrium of the Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Research Complex.

This is the first in a series of six stories that feature Goodman’s research award winners.