Climbing to the top: How female and male coinventors shape the rise of star innovators

Abstract

The persistent underrepresentation of women in innovation systems may entail the loss of high-potential inventors, that is, the future "stars" of technological advancement. As innovation increasingly arises from team-based efforts within and across organizations, understanding how gender shapes collaborations and the emergence of top innovators is critical. In this article, we investigate the time it takes an inventor to become a star in their field and the relationship with the gender and star status of their coinventors. Tracking 100,000 inventors who filed their first patent in 2000 over a 20-year period, we find that female inventors and those that collaborate with female coinventors take significantly longer to reach stardom in their innovative output. Conversely, a higher share of star coinventors, regardless of their gender, is associated with a faster transition. Notably, female inventors experience an additional acceleration in becoming stars when they patent together with male star coinventors, but not necessarily with female stars. These findings underscore the importance of gendered team dynamics and peer effects in shaping careers centered on technological and scientific breakthroughs, and they point to the importance of organizational and managerial levers in addressing gender-based disparities in innovation outcomes.