ENTREPRENEUR’S GENDER AND FIRM INNOVATION BREADTH: AN INSTITUTION-BASED VIEW OF SMEs IN AN EMERGING MARKET CONTEXT

Abstract

This study, at the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship and innovation, investigates the impact of women leadership (vis-a-vis men) on innovation by SMEs in an emerging economy context. Drawing from the institution-based view, we examine the moderating role of regional formal institutions and informal gender norms on the innovativeness of women-led SMEs in India. Using data obtained from the World Bank Enterprise Survey and World Value Survey, and deploying the Poisson regression method, we find that, overall, women-led SMEs perform better than men-led SMEs in innovation breadth. Interestingly, the regional formal institutional quality negatively moderates the relationship between having a female entrepreneur and firm innovation breadth. In addition, regional gender role expectations act as a positive moderator between having a female entrepreneur and firm innovation breadth. Further, the increase in innovation breadth under unfavourable formal institutional quality and informal gender norms is larger for non-technological innovation than for technological innovation.