The idea for this book surfaced during the International Technology Management Seminar of the Chair of Technology Management at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), Germany. Every study term, this interdisciplinary and intercultural seminar is focused on scientific methods of data collection and analyses based on different topics of contemporary societal relevance and impact. In the summer term 2018, the seminar concentrated on one of the most pressing topics on

more »

... ary research: The "gendered innovation" gap. Financially supported by the program "Förderung der Chancengleichheit für Frauen in Forschung und Lehre" (promotion of equal opportunities for women in research and teaching) of the Office of Gender and Diversity at the FAU, it enabled setting-up the seminar different to standard seminars: The course was organized as a three-part interdisciplinary project entitled "Technology Management in Practice -Gender Differences in Innovation", involving eleven students from the School of Business, Economics, and Society, as well as the Faculty of Engineering. The three interrelated elements of the project consisted of (1) a scientific part, (2) an empirical-practical part, and (3) a knowledge-transfer part to the general public. In the scientific part, students reviewed gender relevant literature and identified theories to derive hypotheses on gender differences in various areas of innovation and technology management. Subsequently, a suitable methodology to empirically test the derived hypotheses was developed. The clear grouping of the sample according to the closely matched key variable gender and the prime goal to examine gender-based human behavior and interaction with technologies led to the choice of an experimental design as research method (Gray, 2018). Local technology-oriented firms sponsored technical equipment and innovative products, which were used in the different tasks throughout the experiments. Some firms also had questions of interest concerning gender-specific alignment of their products, which some experiments took upon additionally. The empirical-practical part formed as data collection event basis. On April 26th, 2018, at the International Girls' and Boys' Day, the experiments were carried out with pupils from a local vocational school, aged between 16 and 20 years. The decision to schedule the data collection on this date was due to the day's special purpose to highlight diversity, equal opportunities, and future employment paths for boys and girls independent of their sex. This message fitted the overall aim of our project extraordinarily well. To switch the standard classroom setting with an innovative and creative work-environment, the experiments took place outside university at a special location: the Zollhof Tech Incubator, a home for tech startups and digital innovators in the metropolitan area of Nuremberg, Germany.