Gender and Innovation: State of the Art and a Research Agenda

Abstract

<p><strong>Purpose - </strong>The purpose of the article is to present a framework for research on gender and innovation. The framework is developed based on a review of current literature in the area; it is applied to provide a context for the articles in this special issue and to offer suggestions for future research.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Design/methodology/approach - </strong>The article relies on a literature review of gender and innovation. Additional literature searches on Scopus were conducted to provide an overview of the area. In addition, comparative analogies are sought from research fields of gender and entrepreneurship as well as gender and technology.<strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>Findings - </strong>The article presents the scope and issues in current research on gender and innovation. Based on our overview, research in this area is conducted in various disciplines applying a variety of methodological approaches. In order to make sense of the current research we developed a framework consisting of various approaches to, gender and innovation; these include gender as a variable, construction and process and innovation as a result, process and discourse.</p> <p><strong>Research implications - </strong>Based on the review, several recommendations for future research are made. First, future research should question the connection between technology and innovation, and purposefully seek innovation activity also in low-tech and service sectors and firms. Innovation scholars and policy makers should not primarily target radical and product innovations but should be equally interested in incremental and process innovations. Second, understanding women&rsquo;s innovation activity needs to be embedded in understanding the normative frames and structural factors at play. A particular theoretical call is linked to the study of power and innovation. Third, it is imperative to develop and apply new methodological approaches and new operationalizations of innovation and innovators.</p> <p><strong>Practical implications - </strong>By focusing on gender and innovation, it is possible to discover innovation as a gender biased phenomenon. Policy makers should bear this in mind when developing innovation policies.</p> <p><strong>Originality/value - </strong>This introductory article puts forward a framework on gender and innovation that helps to make sense of the current state-of-the-art and to develop new research questions that need to be addressed for further theorising within the field.</p>