The award committee highlighted the paper’s originality and nuanced perspective on how gender differences may shape innovation outcomes. DRUID, where Leo also presented the paper, is a renowned academic conference bringing together innovation scholars from around the world. We congratulate Mona, Himani, and Leo for their great achievement.
In the paper, Himani, Mona, and Leo study how female versus male stars affect knowledge recombination in inventor teams. Their findings suggest that teams with female stars combine a broader range of knowledge than those with male stars. As knowledge recombination breadth captures the number and diversity of ideas an innovation combines, it is often associated with the creation of radical and potentially disruptive innovation. Uncovering the gendered effects of stars on innovation outcomes in teams, points to a large and mostly untapped innovation potential of female stars. Even though men and women obtain university degrees at similar rates, less than 5% of star inventors are women.
