“Hidden figures”: Women in R&D teams and the environmental product and process innovations of foreign subsidiaries

Although the positive influence of women on environmental innovation has been studied before, its effects within the context of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) remain under-explored. This is an important matter since MNCs reach across borders by means of their foreign subsidiaries, whose activities play an important role in global climate change. Hence, this study examines how foreign subsidiaries' environmental (product and process) innovation objectives are affected by the representation of women in their R&D teams and moderated by the ecological institutions in the home countries of their parent companies. Using a sample of 974 foreign subsidiaries located in Spain over the 2008–2016 period, our results indicate that the MNCs’ home-country environmental institutions can reinforce the expression of socially constructed female roles that support environmental innovation at the subsidiary level. Specifically, this effect tends to be greater for product-related environmental innovations than for process-related ones. These findings further our understanding of the role of female R&D workers in the MNC context and provide evidence that a higher representation of women in their subsidiaries’ R&D teams can be considered a strategic asset with regard to environmental endeavors.