The role of gender in linking external sources of knowledge and R&D intensity

Abstract

Scholars examining the effect of knowledge spillovers on R&D and innovation all agree on one thingthere is a strong relationship between the firm's R&D effort and knowledge spillover. The sign of this relationship depends, however, on many things, such as the type of spillovers (horizontal, vertical, or from other sources), the level of appropriability, the type of firm (e.g. age and sector), and the measurement of the spillover itself. A missing piece of evidence to this literature is the role of gender in the founding team of the firm. Our contribution is to fill this gap by explicitly analysing the role played by gender in the founding team. Given that the relationship between a firm's R&D intensity and external knowledge spillovers is ultimately context-specific, we analyse the differences between male-owned and female-owned young entrepreneurial firms with respect to the influence that knowledge spillovers have on their R&D intensity.

Are the Sins of the Father the Sins of the Sons, but Not the Daughters? Exploring How Leadership Gender and Generation Impact the Corporate Social Responsibility of Franchise Firms

“…Could it be that female heirs continue their fathers' legacy of instrumental CSR, while at the same time modifying firm action to also focus on normative CSR? In this regard, the results of a recent study on the role of founder gender in knowledge diffusion in R&D and innovation [106] seem to fit with our findings on instrumental CSR. Amoroso and Audretsch (2022) [106] observed that women stood out from men in their ability to translate knowledge and social skills to create strong professional networks in the value chain.…”

“…In this regard, the results of a recent study on the role of founder gender in knowledge diffusion in R&D and innovation [106] seem to fit with our findings on instrumental CSR. Amoroso and Audretsch (2022) [106] observed that women stood out from men in their ability to translate knowledge and social skills to create strong professional networks in the value chain. As a consequence of this socialised leadership style, women oriented their companies towards high levels of R&D. Our results seem to be in line with this perspective, which suggests that women are just as effective as men when addressing issues related to economic and productive aspects.…”

“…Next, we explored intergenerational impacts of gender by unpacking the interplay between heir's gender and past founder's gender on the CSR practice of firms, using a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with a bias-corrected accelerated bootstrapping procedure of 5000 samples. MANOVA method allows studying the differences between groups when the dependent variable is of a multidimensional nature [106]. In our case, these analyses allow us to explore the differences between female heirs and male heirs on the normative and instrumental dimensions of CSR.…”

Gender, occupational diversity of R&D teams and patents generation: an application to Spanish firms

“…The composition of an R&D team affects its performance and the return on R&D investment. In this line, Amoroso and Audretsch (2020) found that only female‐led firms are able to benefit from some external sources. Patents are one of the outputs of R&D investment, they are codified knowledge arising from the tacit knowledge embodied in each R&D team member, together with other codified knowledge (existing stock of knowledge, R&D investment, etc.)…”

Gender diversity in European firms and the R&D-innovation-productivity nexus

“…All these differences are likely to explain the somewhat mixed results provided by extant empirical research (e.g. Link and Strong, 2016 ; Amoroso and Audretsch, 2022 ; Xie et al, 2020 ).…”