1999: Women Leaders and Organization Innovation: A Meta-Analytic Review (17469)

The promotion of women's representation in strategic leadership roles, such as chief executive officers (CEOs), top management team (TMT) members, and board of directors (BODs), has been widely advocated to foster organizational innovation. However, empirical findings have, thus far, remained inconsistent, and at times contradictory. To better understand this inconclusive relationship between women leaders and organizational innovation, we conducted a meta-analysis based on 106 independent studies and 230 effect sizes. Our results suggest women’s leadership may affect organizational innovation in general and innovation output. Particularly, the presence of female BODs is more likely to be positively related to organizational innovation output. A nuanced examination of contextual moderators reveals that national gender equality will strengthen the positive effect of BOD gender diversity. Women CEOs in non-male-dominated industries had a positive effect on innovation input. In contrast, women BODs were positively related to innovation output, but TMT gender diversity does not show any advantages. Finally, methodological contingency factors such as the roles of gender and innovation employed (as control variable or not), and publication status were also assessed. Overall, this meta-analytical research is among the first to extensively review the empirical studies of women leaders and organizational innovation. It consolidates and widens our understanding of the role of women leaders in organizational innovation input and output. By doing this, our research highlights the need for future research to take a more contingency-based approach, considering this relationship's complex and multifaceted nature.

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