Gender diversity and innovation in manufacturing and service firms

Abstract

Traditionally, researchers have considered the innovation process as being gender neutral. However, recently some studies have begun to take gender diversity into account as a determinant of firms’ innovation. This paper aims to analyse how the effect of gender diversity on innovation output at firm level is sensitive to team size. Using the Spanish PITEC (Panel de Innovación Tecnológica) from 2007 to 2012 for innovative manufacturing and service firms, we estimate a multivariate probit model to analyse how gender diversity both in R&D teams and in the total workforce affect product, process, marketing and organizational innovations. Our results show that gender-diverse teams increase the probability of innovating, and this capacity is positively related team size. Gender diversity, in both the R&D department and the total workforce, has a larger positive impact on the probability of carrying out product and organizational innovations in larger teams than it does in smaller teams. This effect is less clear-cut in the case of marketing and process innovation, where the impact is only significant for micro and small firms. Finally, size effects are of greater importance when we distinguish between the manufacturing and service sectors. JEL Code: O30, O31, J16