Title: The impact of R&D teams' gender diversity on innovation outputs

Authors: Juan Fernández Sastre

Addresses: Facultad Lationamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Flacso-Ecuador), FLACSO Ecuador – La Pradera, E7-174 y Av. Diego de Almagro, Quito, Despacho 703, Ecuador

Abstract: Drawing from a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, this paper examines the effect of R&D teams' gender diversity on different innovation outputs: products, services, process and organisational innovations. The paper argues that some innovations are best positioned to capitalise the benefits of gender diversity, because of the greater relevance of market insight and personal interactions. Allowing for systematic correlations among the different innovation outcomes, results indicate that, although the relationship between gender diversity and innovation outputs has always the shape of an inverted-U, gender diversity produces a greater impact on service and organisational innovation than in process innovation, while its greatest effect is on product innovation. Results also indicate that having R&D teams with diverse functional expertise has more potential than having a gender diverse R&D labour force, except for service innovation for which gender diversity is as relevant as functional diversity.

Keywords: gender diversity; R&D teams; research and development; innovation outputs; HRM; human resource management; human resources; HR; human capital; Spain; manufacturing industry; products; services; processes; organisational innovation; market insight; personal interactions; teamwork; inverted-U; Yerkes-Dodson; service innovation; process innovation; product innovation; diverse functional expertise; small businesses; small firms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2015.066154

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2015 Vol.24 No.1, pp.142 - 162

Published online: 03 Dec 2014 *

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