Gender Diversity and enterprises’ innovative capability: Evidence from mediating effect of women years of education in Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigates whether female workers’ years of education mediate the influence of gender diversity on innovative capability of enterprises in Nigeria. Although past enterprise studies in some parts of the world provide substantial evidence on the relationship between gender diversity and enterprises’ innovative capability, investigating the mediating effect of education on this relationship has been ignored, particularly in Nigeria which is ranked very low (128 out of 141 countries) in the global innovation index 2015. This study therefore addresses this gap. The study uses three waves Nigeria Enterprise Surveys panel dataset collected in 2007, 2009 and 2014, for a sample of 1,566 enterprises to circumvent the problems associated with application of cross-sectional designs in mediation studies. The study applies Hicks and Tingley (2011) two equations mediation analysis approach with robust standard error. The analysis has been done using Stata econometric package version 14. The results of the inferential analysis in this study indicate that female workers’ years of education mediate fully and positively the effect of gender diversity on innovative capability of enterprises in Nigeria. By implication, for the gender diversity to enhance innovative capability of an enterprise, female workers must be empowered with some level of formal education.