Women-led SMEs: Innovation and collaboration performance?

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners recognize the importance of innovation and collaboration for enhancing business performance.Gender diversity also influences business performance, either directly or indirectly. Gender diversity in a board of directors improves companies’ innovative performance and, consequently, their performance. However, research on innovation in women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is limited, which significantly restricts our understanding of the innovation–performance relationship in such businesses. Thus, in this study, using a sample of 503 women-led SMEs, we show that innovation is not a determinant of businesswomen’s business performance. Our study provides insights into how women-led SMEs deciding to innovate or collaborate are unable to appropriate the benefits suggested in the literature.