Impact of entrepreneur's gender on innovation activities. The perspective of small businesses.

This paper analyses the female gender as a one of the factors that may influence product and process innovativeness of small enterprises. The data discussed come from an empirical study of 1017 small enterprises from the Kujawsko-pomorskie region in central-northern Poland. The theoretical framework suggests three areas of factors that may influence small enterprises innovativeness: the entrepreneur's gender, innovation management capability, and firm characteristics. The results of the study suggest that the female gender of the entrepreneur has a positive impact on the product and process innovativeness of small enterprises. In the group of small enterprises managed by female entrepreneurs the chances of introducing product innovation are higher by 83.7%, process innovation by 56%, and product and process innovation together by 82.1%.