The purpose of this essay is to summarise an academic article on “Knowledge Combination Capability and Innovation: The Effect of Gender Diversity on Top Management Teams in Technology-Based Firms” by Ruiz-Jime´nez, Fuentes-Fuentes, and Ruiz-Arroyo (2016), published in the Journal of Business Ethics.
Study objectives
The overall aim of the study was to investigate the effect of gender diversity in the TMT of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and make a contribution on the discussion about the role of gender diversity on TMT.
The specific objective of the study was to establish the impact of gender diversity on the ability to combine knowledge and innovation performance in organisations.
Study methodology
Study population
The study sample population were 998 Spanish technology-based SMEs with a total of 224 randomly collected responses via computer-assisted telephone interviews by administering questionnaires to the organisations’ CEO. Of the 224 questionnaires, 19 were not legible for the study as the respondents were not the CEOs of the organisations.
Study parameters
Innovation performance
The extent of the firm’s commodities’ newness, use of most recent technological innovations in the organisation’s new commodities, the rate of developing of the firm’s new commodities, and the number of new commodities introduced by the firm in to the market were used to evaluate for innovative performance of the firm as described by Prajogo and Ahmed (2006).
Knowledge combination capability
The ability of the firm’s workers to absorb and disseminate knowledge was evaluated based on a scale developed by Smith et al., (2005). The ability of a firm’s workers to teamwork on ideas to identify problems, provide solutions and come up with better opportunities, their ability to share personal ideas for invention of new commodities, their ability to share work-related experiences in executing new innovations to completion, and how common the workers teamwork in sharing and exchanging ideas to provide solutions, were used as indicators of knowledge combination ability.
Gender diversity
The Blau’s index of gender diversity was used in this study (Smith et al. 2006).
Control parameters
The organisation’s age, size, and investment in research and development were used as the controls.
Research findings
The summary statistics showed that the mean value of gender diversity was 0.32, implying that the number of women in the TMT is high in the study’s sample population. The mean age of the firms was 24.16, indicating the organisations were already established in the industry. Additionally, for the last three years, the mean of workers was 36.36 in the firms, while the average proportion of sales invested in research and development was 8.74%.
The research findings showed that there was a significant difference between the ability to combine knowledge and innovation performance (β = 0.14, p < 0.05). Similarly, there was a positive correlation between the proportion of sales invested in research and development and innovation performance (t = 2.44, p<0.05), and also the age of the firm, its size and investment in research and development did not significantly impact on knowledge combination and innovation performance. Gender diversity alone did not have a significant difference on innovation performance (β = - 0.07, p < 0.1), but the effect of gender diversity combined with the ability to combine knowledge showed a statistically significant difference on innovation performance (β = 0.15, p < 0.05). A similar effect was observed for the gender diversity combined with control parameters on innovation performance (β = 0.16, p < 0.05). The results show that gender has a moderating impact on the ability to combine knowledge and influence innovation performance.
Conclusion
The study established the impact of gender diversity on organisational performance. Gender diversity in the top management teams (TMTs) of organisations is a factor that significantly influences knowledge combination and steering innovation performance.
Study limitations
This was a cross-sectional study. A longitudinal study could be more informative and conclusive. The study did not take into consideration the effect of gender diversity in all the employees’ levels in the organisations. Lastly, the study was only limited to Spain and in only one industrial sector.
References
Ruiz-Jiménez, J., Fuentes-Fuentes, M., and Ruiz-Arroyo, M. (2016) 'Knowledge Combination Capability and Innovation: The Effects of Gender Diversity on Top Management Teams in Technology-Based Firms'. Journal of Business Ethics, 135 (3), 503-515.
Smith, N., Smith, V., " Verner, M. (2006). Do women in top management affect firm performance? A panel study of 2,500 Danish firms’. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 55, 569–59.
Smith, K., Collins, C., " Clark, K. (2005). Existing knowledge, knowledge creation capability and the rate of new product introduction in high technology firms. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 346–357.
