Intersections of gender, ethnicity, place and innovation: Mapping the diversity of women-led SMEs in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article advances knowledge on the diversity and heterogeneity of women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom by analysing how gender intersects with ethnicity and place to influence their engagement in innovation. We adopt an intersectional perspective, and base our analyses on the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) data of 29,257 SMEs over the period 2015–2018. Our findings suggest that despite their limited number, as well as firm size and industry sector constraints, women-led SMEs are actively engaged in innovation activities. In addition, our results on the effects of intersecting categories of gender, ethnicity and place on innovation, further emphasise the heterogeneity of women-led SMEs, both with regard to their likelihood to engage in innovation, as well as the place where innovation is most likely to occur. Implications for policy and practice are highlighted.

An Italian preview of evidences in accessing EU funds by the SMEs. Social and economic development leveraging in the R&D and Innovation capabilities

“…As a result of the way of governance through the regions 14 , the biggest source of funding is the regional authorities. Regulated by legislative decree no.…”

Catalyzing change: Innovation in women's entrepreneurship

“…Contextual effects span across the socio‐economic environment reflecting culture, institutional norms, time, space, and regulations (Whetten, 1989). Indeed, recent research suggests that a country's environmental conditions influence women's contributions to innovation (Audretsch, Belitski, & Brush, 2022; Foss et al, 2021; Owalla, Nyanzu, & Vorley, 2021). Therefore, in developing a research agenda for innovation in women's entrepreneurship, greater attention needs to be devoted to studying gendered spaces and places, and how external environments related to cultural and economic development support or sabotage women in innovation.…”

Gender, STEM women and entrepreneurship: a review and future research directions

“…Quantitative studies either sought to identify the macro-, meso- or individual-level factors influencing, or that could be leveraged to promote, STEM women's entrepreneurial activity (Xie and Lv, 2018; Piva and Rovelli, 2022), or they explored the performance outcomes of STEM ventures having women owners or within the entrepreneurial team, in terms of financial returns and growth (Demartini, 2018), innovation (Dai et al. , 2019; Owalla et al. , 2021), access to finance (Nigam et al.…”

“…Reflecting calls for research investigating the influence of intersecting socio-demographic categories on entrepreneurial activity generally and for women's entrepreneurship specifically (Marlow and Martinez Dy, 2018; Martinez Dy, 2020), intersectional analyses of STEM women's entrepreneurial activity are emerging. Owalla et al. (2021) explore the intersection of gender, ethnicity, place and innovation, highlighting the scarcity and geographical clustering of women-led, technology sector SMEs in the UK, reminding us not only of the importance of place and regional access to institutional supports, but also how such access and opportunities differ due to social positioning.…”

“…Quantitative studies either sought to identify the macro-, meso-or individual-level factors influencing, or that could be leveraged to promote, STEM women's entrepreneurial activity (Xie and Lv, 2018;Piva and Rovelli, 2022), or they explored the performance outcomes of STEM ventures having women owners or within the entrepreneurial team, in terms of financial returns and growth (Demartini, 2018), innovation (Dai et al, 2019;Owalla et al, 2021), access to finance (Nigam et al, 2022) or likelihood of firm failure (Woolley, 2019). Demartini (2018) sought to investigate if the female underperformance hypothesis held for STEM women entrepreneurs in Italian high-tech start-ups, establishing that STEM women entrepreneurs did not underperform in comparison to their male counterparts.…”