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The recent literature on corporate governance and gender diversity underlines that those differences may go beyond a pure or direct effect on firms’ performance and in this vein, this study aims to investigate whether the presence of women in leading positions can affect the credit rating indicators.

The authors focus on Italian manufacturing firms, as well as small and medium firms (SMEs), that are often under-represented in previous studies, despite their importance in many economies. The authors extract data on directors and top managers as well as rating classes and credit score indicators, and using a fixed-effects model, the authors analyze the relationship between credit risk mitigation and the inclusion of women among top managers, consistently with the rising empirical literature focused on risk perceptions.

The authors find a significant negative relationship between female participation in top management and credit risk, with a greater impact associated with smaller firms, where the presence of a female top manager might make the difference. The results are robust to different model specifications and estimation strategies, and the authors find different magnitudes of the effects also according to the geographical location of the firm.

Because of the chosen sample of manufacturing firms, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to expand the study and test the approach elsewhere.

The authors add new and more robust empirical evidence of a negative relationship between female participation in the top management and credit risk by focusing on the entire population of Italian nonlisted manufacturing firms.

This study aims to holistically explore the academic literature on female leaders to identify the key topics and dynamics of the field.

The authors systematically review 532 papers to explore the research on female leaders; based on objective and replicable criteria, the authors identify relevant papers and thus ensure the quality of the analysis. The bibliometric analysis and visualization support us in recognizing trends in this topic.

This study outlines the state of the art over the past decade by synthesizing theoretical contexts and critically discussing the main streams of research on sustainability, firm outcomes and barriers preventing women from reaching the upper echelons. The authors also explore empirical issues and highlight areas that entail new paths for future scholars.

The research provides novel evidence of the attempt internationally to increase female participation at the top of the firm hierarchy by analyzing firm outcomes, sustainability and the constraints faced by women in achieving these careers.

The results show that the participation of women in leadership roles is not (only) a matter of compliance with current regulations. Through their ability to monitor key social and environmental issues from a long-term perspective and their attention to the internal control systems, companies more effectively pursue their financial and nonfinancial aims.

Using bibliographic and narrative analyses, this study reviews the literature on women at the top of the firm hierarchy with a focus on business research. The authors extend prior studies by investigating a larger pool of firm roles to provide a comprehensive understanding of this widely discussed topic.

This study aims to explore the mechanism of the relationships between financial and non-financial outcomes and gender equality through a case study of a Japanese bank that has consistently pursued gender equality.

A single case study was adopted to explore the outcomes of promoting gender equality. Primary data were collected from 12 semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed by rereading and coding the interview responses coded to generate themes.

Through governance reform in Company A, women have been placed in top management positions and the number of female managers has increased, allowing frontline intentions to be reflected in decision-making. The increased number of female managers has led to a decrease in female turnover, men taking parental leave, improved training of female managers and the recruitment of excellent new graduates. The appropriate allocation of jobs to female managers and employees also meets customer needs and has led to increased sales. Finally, involvement of female employees in product development in male-dominated workplaces brings women’s experiences and perspectives to product development, resulting in the development of products that are favoured by customers.

This study determined the mechanism behind the relationships between financial and non-financial outcomes and gender equality, based on agency, upper echelons, resource dependence, institutional and social role theories. It also contributes to gender equality research methodology by providing compelling qualitative stories of gender equality outcomes to increase a company’s commitment to promoting gender equality.

The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.

The study draws on 19 interviews of CEOs, senior line managers and HR directors in ten technology companies operating in Finland. The method is (reflexive) thematic analysis.

Previous studies on the role of executives in promoting gender equality provide somewhat mixed results: while their role is vital, senior leaders may not be inclined to support gender equality targets and measures. Drawing on critical feminist theorizing, this study identifies three ways in which the executives in technology companies related to gender equality targets: endorsing, negotiating and resisting. However, all these responses were constrained by the executives’ assumption that their companies are meritocratic. The study illustrates how executives’ narrow understanding of gender equality and reliance on the presumably well-working systems, combined with underlying doubts about the competence of women, hinder the advancement of women to top management.

While previous studies have evaluated targets to increase the number/percentage of women, both in certain “ideal case” companies and in terms of their effectiveness more broadly, this study discusses how technology company executives navigate these targets in relation to women's assumed “competence”.

The paper focusses on the intrapersonal vs environmental barriers to women's career advancement to the top leadership positions in the information and communication technology (ICT) business and envisages the individual, organisational as well as societal practices for overcoming such barriers in the given sector.

The study relies on the qualitative research method of expert interviews with top-level women managers in the leading ICT companies in Lithuania. The study allowed identifying and structuring the key barriers to women's careers and three-level practices for overcoming them.

The research has shown that the key intrapersonal barriers are related to the lack of self-confidence and perceived glass ceiling. The main environmental barriers are male domination and socially gendered professions. The practices for overcoming women's career barriers can be categorised into three levels – individual, organisational and societal. The study has shown that the most important individual practices are the ability to continuously self-educate and self-affirmation. On the organisational level, the following key practices can be applied: mentorship and inclusive company culture. The societal practices for improving women's career advancement in ICT are mainly represented by the visibility of successful leaders as role models and initiatives increasing awareness for an inclusive society.

The research limitations are largely related to the research sample selected for the qualitative research (interviews). The respondents are already established in the top leadership positions, so may only have a retrospective view on the obstacles to the respondents' careers. A larger sample could provide a more generalisable data, whilst a larger number of interview participants for preselected categories, like company category or tenure in a position, would provide insights on the different stages of career growth and company's influence for the individual's growth. The authors encourage extending research to other sectoral and national contexts.

The research sets out the key barriers that can be overcome with the help of individual, organisational and societal practices. This provides a comprehensive list of practices that can be adopted by the organisations (in the ICT and beyond), as well as the policy makers on the societal level.

Addressing the issues of gender balance and women's career advancement in one of the fastest growing industries (ICT) has profound social implications. Qualitative research has shown how the barriers can be overcome at different levels of the social system.

The paper marks one of the first attempts to introduce a three-level approach to addressing the intrapersonal and environmental barriers to the advancement of women's careers with a particular focus on the ICT sectoral context.

This paper aims to examine the impact of gender diversity on boards and on top management positions on excess cash holdings.

The authors adopt the quantile regression approach to test the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holding. The sample consists of 1,235 firm-year observations for the period 2005–2017.

The authors find that board gender diversity negatively influences the level of excess cash. This result suggests that women appointed in the boardroom are effective in monitoring managerial actions, including financing policies. The results also show that by forcing companies to have a quota of women on their boards, the presence of women no longer has a negative impact on excess cash holdings. However, when women stand at the chief executive officer or chief financial officer position, they tend to accumulate cash for precautionary motives. These results suggest that women behave differently regarding excess cash holding as monitors compared to their role as decision-makers.

The results may be of interest to legislators who may decide to break the glass ceiling, preventing women from gaining greater access to senior management positions. This is in line with the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF Governance Code of 2020, which strongly recommends the recruitment of women to senior management positions. The results are also important to investors, who might be likely to trust companies in which women hold positions on boards of directors which may increase firm value. The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

This study investigates the role of women both as controllers and decision-makers in holding excessive amounts of cash. It also highlights new evidence on the impact the approach of appointing women on boards (enabling/coercive and market-based) can have on the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holdings.

Much research has been conducted regarding leadership success challenges. However, few are practically oriented on whether the success of women's leadership aligns to organisational, personal and societal contexts as glass cliffs. Thus, this study aims to examine these factors and introduce how they inhibit women from leadership success.

This research examined the glass ceiling effects Ethiopian women leaders face. This research focused on adjusted clusters and a survey of 446 female employees from zones, woreda and kebeles. The data was processed through SPSS 25.0 to regress the values.

Breaking the glass ceiling, the glass cliffs effects on women’s income levels, the lack of an arena for self-improvement, the nature of organisation policies and challenges in teamwork were found to contribute to women’s under-representation in top leadership positions.

The results focused only on the 94 public organisations in Ethiopia that were selected by adjusted cluster sampling.

Realizations of substantial change and refocusing on bringing a significant number of women to the boardrooms in the public bureaucracy, besides glass cliffs.

Enhancing the importance of accepting women leaders.

To add value to the stock of literature in gender equality, this research brings a strategic focus on factors that inhibit women from top leadership positions.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of gender in leadership on strategic orientation and the relative impact of these strategic orientations on organizational performance with the leadership of each gender.

Cross-sectional survey-based data were collected from 1,260 logistics companies, and 503 responses were found suitable for further data evaluation. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and regression analysis were used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

Results show that managers' gender affects only the aggressiveness subdimension (p = 0.018 and ß = 0.114) in strategic orientation decisions and that male managers tend to be more aggressive-oriented than female managers. Strategic orientation is more effective on organizational performance. More clearly, when female executives use the same strategic orientation as their male counterparts, organizational performance is higher than that of male executives.

Managers' power is related to social norms about their valuable contribution to the organization and roles are associated with experiences. Thus, at different levels of management, different results will be obtained.

Organizations should only define leadership roles in masculine terms with information or research that explains how women leaders can contribute to the organization's outcomes.

The lack of fit model should not be expected when determining executive-level female leaders' performance.

There is a significant potential in studying strategic decision-making and whether the ability to provide effective organizational outcomes is related to a person's gender. Even if previous literature suggests that gender stereotypes affect perceptions of men's and women's fit for executive positions, the strategic conception of organizational decisions is immune to gender, but strategy execution is not.

This paper aims to present a comprehensive theoretical framework that seeks to explore the impact of cultural, legal and social factors within the external environment on the relationship between women on corporate boards and firm performance. By investigating these boundary conditions, the paper aims to shed light on how these pressures influence the aforementioned relationship.

To build the sample of companies, the authors selected companies listed on the stock exchanges of countries that represent a diverse range of institutional contexts. These contexts encompass countries with individualistic cultures, collectivist cultures, environments with mandatory gender quotas, environments without gender quotas, contexts with substantial progress toward gender equality and contexts with limited progress in achieving gender equality. To test the hypotheses, the authors used linear regression analysis as a primary analytical approach. Furthermore, they used the propensity score matching technique to address potential issues of reverse causality and unobserved heterogeneity.

The findings indicate that the positive influence of a critical mass of women on corporate boards on firm performance is contingent upon the institutional context. Specifically, the authors observed that this relationship is strengthened in institutional contexts characterized by an individualistic culture, whereas it is not as pronounced in collectivist cultural contexts. Furthermore, this research provides compelling evidence that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards leads to enhanced firm performance in institutional settings where gender quotas are not binding, as opposed to settings where such quotas are enforced. Lastly, the results demonstrate that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards is associated with improved firm performance in institutional settings characterized by low progress in achieving gender equality. However, the authors did not observe the same effect in institutional contexts that have made significant strides toward gender equality.

This research offers a unique perspective by investigating the relationship between women’s presence on corporate boards and firm performance across different institutional contexts. In this investigation, the authors recognize that gender diversity on corporate boards is not a one-size-fits-all solution and that its effects can be shaped by the unique institutional contexts in which companies operate.

This paper empirically investigates whether female CEOs (She-E-Os) have an effect on firm innovation among Chinese listed firms based on patent data. This study also delved further by looking at whether the internal corporate environment moderates the effect of female CEOs on innovation, that is, state ownership. Finally, this study investigates an additional test of financial constraints to examine whether financial constraints also moderate the impact of female CEOs on firm innovation.

This study used the data of all A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the period from 2008 to 2017. The authors use ordinary least squares regression as a baseline methodology, along with firm-fixed effect, lagged measure of female CEOs, alternative measures of innovation, Heckman two-step model and negative binomial regression to check and control the possible issue of endogeneity.

The authors’ findings show that CEO gender plays an important role in producing higher levels of innovation output by improving the governance structure. However, female CEOs have no effect on state-owned enterprises' (SOEs) innovation activities, which suggests that the main goal of SOEs is achieving sociopolitical objectives. Furthermore, female CEOs' influence on innovation output is weaker in firms with financial constraints.

This study adds to the emerging global discussion on gender diversity. Many legislative bodies require a quota for women on corporate boards due to gender inequality. This study's findings reinforce such guidelines by emphasizing the economic benefits of including women in top management positions.

This study provides new insights by highlighting the role of female CEOs in increasing firms' innovation activities. Additionally, this study provides evidence on whether the internal corporate environment (state ownership and financial constraints) moderates female CEOs' effect on innovation.