Gender differences in performance-driven managerial innovation: evidence from US nursing homes

The management literature has highlighted the role of a manager’s gender in adopting and practicing managerial innovation. The conditions that affect female (or male) managers’ decision making on innovations, however, have been less explored. Using a national survey of top-level administrators in US nursing homes and archival nursing home quality data, this study examines how performance information shapes gender differences in managerial innovation adoption. We find that female managers are more likely to adopt innovations relative to male managers, particularly when they perform better than they have in past years. Our findings, however, do not support a gender difference in innovation adoption when a nursing home performs worse than other competing organizations. The findings provide important implications on how a manager’s gender produces systematic differences in innovation adoption related to performance information.