Coupling men-to-women: Promoting innovation in emerging markets

Motivated by calls to explore corporate outcomes of gender diversity-related dependencies in a firm's upper echelons, we examine whether gender diversity in manager-owner(s) teams shapes innovation. Using the context of emerging markets and a large surveydataset drawn from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), we find robust evidence suggesting that gender-diverse manager-owner(s) teams are associated with higher odds of undertaking innovation. Specifically, women (men) owned firms managed by a male (female) top manager are associated with a higher likelihood of undertaking innovation relative to women (men) owned firms managed by women (men). Additionally, we find that female-owned firms run by male (female) top managers are the most (least) innovative and male-owned firms run by female (male) top managers are the second (third) innovative. Our findings indicate that heterophilic manager-owner(s) teams have the potential to foster innovation in emerging markets. More importantly, our results suggest that initiatives promoting manager-owner(s) team's gender diversity have the potential to overcome the social and structural barriers that impede innovation in emerging economies.