Innovativeness and business relationships in women-owned firms: The role of gender stereotypes Fuentes Fuentes, María Del Mar Bojica Bojica, Ana María Ruiz Arroyo, Matilde Welter, Friederike Entrepreneurship Women-owned firms Innovativeness Business contacts Gender stereotypes This paper investigates the relationship between business contacts and innovativeness in women-owned firms and how women entrepreneurs’ perception of gender stereotypes affects this relationship. We test our hypotheses using data obtained through a survey of 107 women entrepreneurs in Spain. The results show that maintaining close contacts with managers/entrepreneurs in different industries and with customers is significant in explaining innovativeness in women-owned firms. The stronger the women entrepreneurs’ perception of stereotypes that depart from the masculine profile of the entrepreneur, the stronger the influence of these two types of close contact on innovativeness. 2025-01-30T12:51:09Z 2025-01-30T12:51:09Z 2017-03 journal article Fuentes‐Fuentes, M.M., Bojica, A. M., Ruiz‐Arroyo, M., & Welter, F. (2015). Innovativeness and business relationships in women‐owned firms: The role of gender stereotypes. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 34(1), 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1329 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/101362 https://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1329 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.