Business PhD Spotlight: Samira Jafari

Before beginning her doctoral journey at the Alberta School of Business, Samira Jafari was already familiar with the world of entrepreneurship—not only as a researcher, but as an entrepreneur herself.

Originally trained as an engineer, Jafari earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Islamic Azad University of Tehran before entering the technology industry and launching her own company. During this period, she also obtained a software patent in 2016, reflecting her early contributions to technological innovation. Building a business in the tech sector — a field traditionally dominated by men — brought both opportunities and challenges. Her entrepreneurial efforts were recognized nationally in 2018 when she was named Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in Iran. The award was granted in recognition of her success in launching and scaling a venture, as well as her contributions to the development of women’s entrepreneurship in Iran.

Yet success did not shield her from the structural barriers many women entrepreneurs face in Iran. While all entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty, Jafari experienced firsthand how gendered expectations and social norms could shape access to opportunities, trust, and recognition in the marketplace. These experiences sparked a deeper question that would ultimately lead her from industry into academia.

“I began to see that many of the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs are not individual shortcomings, but systemic conditions that require constant coping." 

"For instance," says Jafari, "some women adopt a ‘prove them wrong’ mindset — pushing themselves to overperform in order to gain legitimacy in environments where they are initially underestimated. Importantly, the consequences of these coping responses often extend far beyond business performance, affecting confidence, well-being, and perceptions of what opportunities are possible."

Having built a business within a conservative institutional environment and later transitioning to a different context, Jafari became increasingly interested in how cultural norms and institutional structures shape entrepreneurial behaviour. Recent developments in Iran further reinforced for her the urgency of examining how silence, normalization, and systemic inequality can impose profound human costs. In environments where women’s voices are often constrained, research can serve as an important way to document experiences and make inequalities visible.

Today, Jafari’s doctoral research explores how women entrepreneurs navigate gender-related barriers and how their coping strategies influence both business outcomes and psychological well-being. Her dissertation uses a mixed-method research design, combining in-depth interviews and survey data to compare women entrepreneurs’ experiences across different cultural contexts.

“I chose to pursue a PhD at the Alberta School of Business because of the opportunity to work with professor Jennifer Jennings, one of the world’s leading scholars in gender and entrepreneurship. And I was drawn to the collaborative and supportive environment of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Management department at the Alberta School of Business,” says Jafari.

Through her research, Jafari hopes to deepen our understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and contribute knowledge that can help build more inclusive and supportive entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide.

Samira Jafari joined the Alberta School of Business in 2022, specializing in strategy, entrepreneurship and management and is supervised by professor Jennifer Jennings.