| Abstract |
Recent studies have shown that innovation could play an important role in fostering new business models by defining new or improved services, products or processes. In addition, more and more women are playing an important role in the country's development by starting new businesses. However, lack of competitiveness has led to a number of failures. Therefore, innovation could provide the backbone for a sustainable and competitive economy. Understanding the link between innovation and its role in enhancing entrepreneurship capabilities needs to be further investigated from a gender perspective. In Asia, specifically Thailand shows a notable high rate of women entrepreneurship in various entrepreneurial phases. Utilizing the 2012 GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) Thailand database, this paper seeks to empirically investigate the impact of gender on innovativeness in Thai entrepreneurs. This paper categorizes entrepreneurs into three groups based on their business progress: those who intend to start a business within three years, young businesses owners and established entrepreneurs. The results interestingly indicate a lack of gender difference in innovativeness for those in new business while some gender impact was present in innovativeness for those who are in the extreme case like either intending to start a business or established businesses. The significance of this study is in thus confirming that gender differences are found in innovativeness exhibited by either intending or fully established Thai entrepreneurs. While no gender difference was found in those entrepreneurs that are in the process of establishing their business for around three and half years. Furthermore, it is observed that young female business owners are consistently found to be more innovative. |
