Female Directors and Innovation in Public Hospitals

The paper aims to examine the influence of gender diversity among hospital directors on the adoption of innovation. To this aim, it empirically analyses a sample of 108 Italian public hospitals, including general, teaching and research hospitals, for the 2015-2016 time-frame. Findings from our OLS regression analysis show that female directors enable hospitals to successfully face the innovation challenge. In particular, female directors bring specific skills to executives and enhance their knowledge base. In addition, the results of our analysis suggest that work-abroad experience promote the implementation of innovative solutions as it provides women directors with a global view and open-mindedness that enrich their intercultural skills, and therefore their attitude towards innovation. The results contribute to the existing empirical research on women in governance by providing insights into the healthcare sector that is still under-explored. Moreover, the paper suggests that policy makers should pay attention to combine a stronger participation of female in hospital leadership, and call for proper normative actions able to improve the background requirements for the recruitment of directors