Gendering of firms' collaboration networks and innovation: a global study with a focus on China, Japan and South Korea

摘要

Innovation in a firm is embedded in a network around the firm, typically, and its networking benefits its innovation. This embeddedness is gendered, we hypothesise, in the way the women's firms tend to network less than men's firms, also when controlling for other things. This micro-level dynamic further differs among societies, notably among China, Japan, South Korea and other countries, we hypothesise. The hypotheses about the world generally, and specifically about mainland China, Japan and South Korea, uses data on 24,937 established firms in 68 countries, from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, analysed by hierarchical linear modelling. Findings suggest that networking is more extensive in men's firms. Second, innovation is higher in women's firms. Third, firms' networking benefits innovation similarly much in men's firms and in women's firms. Finally, the gender gap is similarly wide in Japan, South Korea and China, and the countries differ in their firms' networking and innovation.