Li Jie
Researcher
Jie Li is an Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano and a member of the Entrepreneurship, Finance, and Innovation research group. Her teaching activities span MBA courses, including Entrepreneurship modules and Pre-Incubation Labs; master’s-level courses such as Business Economics, Economics and Policies of Entrepreneurship, and the Entrepreneurship Lab for High-Tech Startups; and bachelor’s-level courses in Business Organization.
She also serves as Project Manager and Scientific Coordinator of the EU-funded blended MOOC WITECH (Women in Technology).
Career
Jie Li earned a joint PhD in Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and in Strategy and Innovation from Copenhagen Business School in 2025.
She holds a double MSc degree in Management of the Built Environment and Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (2019).
Before relocating to Milan, she obtained a BSc in Civil Engineering and worked for five years as a junior consultant in China.
Research
Her research focuses on the determinants of gender disparities in entrepreneurial finance, with particular attention to the mechanisms that hinder women’s access to external funding across different financing channels. Her work also aims to identify and evaluate policy interventions that can mitigate these disparities, promote equitable access to financial capital, and enhance the performance of female-led ventures.
Her research adopts a multidisciplinary perspective, and she collaborates with scholars in entrepreneurship, management, economics, and social psychology. Methodologically, she primarily employs experimental approaches.
Selected Publications
Li, J., Colombo, M. G., Rossi-Lamastra, C., & Brush, C. (2025). Gender disparities in entrepreneurial finance: drivers, mechanisms, boundary conditions, and future research avenues. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 1-42.
Giannella, V. A., Manzi, C., Donato, S., & Li, J. (2025). Women Entrepreneurship of Necessity: A Literature Review for the Analysis of Push and Pull Factors. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), e70166.
Grants, awards and Honours
Andrew Applegate, Xiomara Barreto, Jie Li, Daniel Rassoul, and Anna Sordon (2018). 1st Prize Winner of Soles4Souls International Consulting Competition at Global X-culture Conference & Symposium in Nashville, TN, USA
Community service