How gender affects collaborative innovation networks performance: The case of the Dutch fashion industry

The aim of this paper is to study the use of online social networks by male and female fashion entrepreneurs in order to better understand its structure and how it leads to better collaboration and better performance. In particular, we examine whether gender, diversity, and their combined effects influence the performance of start-ups in the fashion industry. We hypothesise that an entrepreneur's diverse online social network ties, including weak ties and strong ties, have different impacts on performance for male and female entrepreneurs. The data for the study was collected through industry surveys and from Facebook. We used ANOVA to test the direct interaction effects of gender and network diversity. The key finding of this study pertains to the interaction effect of gender and network diversity on the performance of a start-up. In general, start-ups established by male entrepreneurs displayed better performance which can be attributed to the diversity of their online social networks compared to female entrepreneurs.