In research, the female contingent is unfortunately still under-represented -

© Shutterstock (via The Conversation)

  • Still too few women - less than 30% per promotion - make up the ranks of engineers and researchers in science, according to our partner The Conversation.

  • However, female productivity and efficiency are equal to those of men… when they do not surpass them!

  • The analysis of this phenomenon was carried out by S. Le Loarne-Lemaire, professor of management, A. Maalaoui, director of the entrepreneurship center, A. Kallmuenzer, professor of entrepreneurship, G. Bertrand, associate professor of entrepreneurship and Mr. Razgallah, teaching and research associate.

By making up less than 30% of a class of engineers or researchers in so-called “hard” sciences, women are largely absent from technological innovation processes.

A deficit to be filled which may however appear to be good news for responding to the climate challenge, because they can help accelerate the search for innovative solutions.

So there is room for maneuver.

Percentages of Grade A female scientists (executives) in 34 European countries.

France is in the middle.

A majority of Eastern countries present the best results © She Figures 2018 - J. Mendret (via The Conversation)

This is what emerges from our research on the challenges of innovation to fight against climate change, which has just appeared in the journal

Technological Forecasting & Social Change

.

Our analysis is based on a systematic study of the 1,275 articles published since 1975 in journals classified in the

Harzing List

(aggregate of the various rankings of scientific management journals in the world).

Very productive researchers

First of all, the very good productivity of the women who embrace this profession has been widely demonstrated: more than her male counterpart, the researcher would focus on the research question that drives her.

Even if it is difficult to formulate a rule applicable to all women, the literature shows that the researcher chooses to work on an issue that truly motivates her, abandoning questions that could be worked on out of career opportunism or out of secondary curiosity.

This focus leads her to be more productive, to file more patents and to publish more results.

One of the main explanations can be found in the social constraints experienced during their doctoral studies and which would push women to surpass themselves: for a long time, the fairer sex has been discriminated against in obtaining scholarships and in the getting their first job.

Social constraints experienced during their doctorate push women to surpass themselves © PxHere CC BY-SA (via The Conversation)

Also, in a context where it is urgent to find alternative technological solutions to those currently in force to fight against climate change, the sociological position of the researchers leads them to be more efficient.

This efficiency appears all the more noticeable when it comes to transforming the invention, recorded in a patent, into innovation.

The literature also mentions that women are eager to adopt new technologies when they are perceived to have a social impact.

Researchers have less ambition to see their invention transformed into innovation than their male counterparts, unless this innovation can help others and fulfill a societal purpose.

Women adopt more useful innovations

On the other hand, this capacity for innovation is present when their work is respected.

Conversely, women are less creative and productive when the work environment is harmful.

In view of this social appetite shown by women, we hypothesize that more researchers motivated by the search for new technologies that consume less energy or substitutes for existing technologies can only be productive in their approach.

Women would therefore seem useful upstream of the innovation process to fight against climate change.

Their contribution also seems valuable downstream of the process, when the innovation is launched on its market and in the process of being adopted.

A researcher at the National Cancer Institute © NCI / Unsplash

We know that the adoption of an innovation remains more a matter of social class than of gender.

However, since the 1990s, it has been shown that women have difficulty adopting innovations that they consider unnecessary - “gadget” innovations in a way.

If the observation was made on the case of the adoption of innovations linked to information technologies, we hypothesize that more women in the sorting of innovations can make it possible to distinguish between those who contribute. really in the fight against climate change and those which are superfluous beyond their apparent attractiveness.

Persistent discrimination

All the qualities attributed to women are not intrinsic to their sex but are the result of postures and reactions to discrimination.

However, as positive as they may be, recent literature highlights persistent signs of discrimination against women, in particular in innovation processes: when hiring for research positions, promotion to head of research laboratories ...

The mother researchers also remain reluctant to go to the research conferences furthest from their place of life, which puts them away from the exchange networks that are nevertheless necessary to generate new opportunities for collaboration, publication and especially to access new research positions.

The obstacles experienced by researchers are also known to women who participate in the creation and innovation process in companies: their ideas of innovation are rarely adopted in an ideation process;

their promotions to managerial positions, where they may be able to select useful technologies and exclude gadget innovations to effectively combat global warming, often appear compromised because of the “glass ceiling”.

Our “Gender equality” dossier

Also, the hypothesis that we pose is that the fight against discrimination between women and men in the economic world seems to be a good way to accelerate the efficiency of a process of technological innovation to fight against climate change.

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Planet

Global warming: comparing glaciers to dragons to better understand the threat

This analysis was written by Séverine Le Loarne-Lemaire, professor of innovation management & strategic management (Grenoble École de Management);

Adnane Maalaoui, director of the entrepreneurship center (IPAG Business School);

Andreas Kallmuenzer, professor of entrepreneurship & management (Excelia Group - UGEI);

Gaël Bertrand, associate professor of entrepreneurship (ESSCA School of Management);

Myriam Razgallah, temporary teaching and research assistant (IAE Gustave-Eiffel, Gustave Eiffel University).


The original article was published on The Conversation website.

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