The Gender Effect on a Firm’s Innovative Activities in the Emerging Economies

Kyunga Na and Kwangsoo Shin
Additional contact information
Kyunga Na: Department of Accounting and Taxation, Keimyung University, Euiyang Hall 327, 1095, Dalgubeol-daero, Dalseo-gu, Daegu 41566, Korea
Kwangsoo Shin: Department of Bio-Medical Convergence, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Chungdae-ro 1, Seowon-gu, Cheongju-si, Chungbuk 28644, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-24

Abstract: This study examines the impact of gender at three different positions in a firm’s hierarchy on innovative activities, looking at over 6474 firms in 30 emerging countries. We create a dummy variable for each of the six survey questions on product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation, marketing innovation, and R&D (Research & Development) spending. Each dummy acts as a dependent variable in a separate logit regression, and the sum of the dummies acts as the dependent variable in another ordered logit regression. We use the female ownership percentage, female top management, and female majority in the workforce as test variables. We use the Heckman two-stage model to address endogeneity concerns with gender. We find that the female ownership percentage is generally positively related to individual innovation measures as well as the composite measure, while female top management is positively associated with marketing innovation only, and a female majority in the workforce is not significantly related to any measure. The results suggest that promoting innovation in emerging countries would involve governments encouraging further market participation by women and supporting female CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) to innovate, and firms fostering innovation among female workers.

Keywords: emerging markets; innovation; gender; female ownership; female top manager; female employees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/1992/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/1992/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:7:p:1992-:d:219737

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().