Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying organisational features, according to the gendered organisation theory, that have contributed to high levels of representation of women executives, contrary to the trend in the South African financial services industry.

A critical realist approach was employed, using semi-structured interviews, based on a theoretical framework of the gendered organisation. Data were aligned to the theoretical levels of critical realism.

The research found that the pool from which the successful candidates were appointed was influenced by two features. The first was the perceived attractiveness of the organisation as an employer, composed of organisational prestige, opportunity for altruism, and the sex of the CEO. The second was the role of the CEO as gatekeeper, most notably the CEO’s network and the impact of the similar-to-me paradigm during selection.

The utilisation of critical realism as an approach allowed for organisational features embedded in the theory of the gendered organisation to be identified and gives an indication of how the number of women at executive management level may be increased. The salient factors are the role the woman CEO played in the inclusion of more women at the executive level by virtue of her being a woman, and the attractiveness of the organisation to women employees. Organisational features identified were gendered towards the feminine.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of gender bias among women hospital CEOs and explore to what these female leaders attribute their success within a male-dominated hospital executive leadership milieu.

This qualitative study involved 12 women hospital CEOs from across Ontario, Canada. Purposeful sampling techniques and in-depth qualitative interview methods were used to facilitate discussion around experiences of gender and leadership.

Responses fell into two groups: the first group represented the statement “Gender inequality is alive and well”. The second group reflected the statement “Gender inequity is not significant, did not happen to me, and things are better now”. This group contained a sub-group with no consciousness of systemic discrimination and that claimed having no gendered experiences in their leadership journey. The first group described gender issues in various contexts, from the individual to the systemic. The second group was ambivalent about gender as a factor impacting leadership trajectories.

Representations of women’s leadership have become detached from feminism, with major consequences for women. This study reveals how difficult it is for some women CEOs to identify gender bias. The subtle everyday norms and practices within the workplace make it difficult to name and explain gender bias explicitly and may explain the challenges in understanding how it might affect a woman’s career path.

This study aims to examine how woman leadership (i.e., woman board chairperson, woman chief executive officer (CEO) and board gender diversity) affects audit fee and also ascertained the interactive effect of woman leadership and gender diversity on audit committee on audit fee.

The study applied ordinary least square and fixed-effect estimators on the data of 21 universal banks in Ghana for the period 2010–2021 to estimate the empirical results.

It is revealed that under the leadership of women (woman CEO and board gender diversity), higher external audit quality is ensured as higher audit fee is paid. Interestingly, it was found that with the presence of women on the audit committee, the integrity of internal controls and internal audit procedures are enhanced, which leads to quality financial reporting, calls for lower audit effort, hence lower audit fee.

The result indicates that firms can rely on the leadership of women in ensuring quality external audit and quality financial reporting, which ultimately helps to minimize the information risk to all stakeholders.

The paper contributes to extant literature by establishing that, under the leadership of women in banking entities from a developing country context, external audit quality and financial reporting are achieved.

We examined stock market reactions to announcements of CEO appointments as a proxy for the perceived value created by these appointments. We examined differences in market reactions to the appointments of minority and women CEOs compared to white males. Our results indicate additional value creation through the appointment of African- American CEOs, but not through the appointment of female or Hispanic CEOs. We provide a potential explanation for this differential valuation of differing types of diversity.

We investigate the effect of female CEOs on corporate innovation using Indonesian companies. More specifically, this paper aims to answer the following research questions. First, do firms led by female CEOs innovate more or less than firms led by male CEOs? Second, does firm size positively moderate the effect of CEO gender on corporate innovation? Our research questions imply that female CEOs' innovative performance likely depends on the size of their firms.

Because the dependent variable is a dummy that equals one if the firm was an innovator and zero otherwise, this study employs probit analysis to test the hypotheses empirically. As an alternative test, we use a different measure of the dependent variable (INNOV-corporate innovation) by summing the firm's responses (yes/no) to nine innovation-related questions. Because this alternative measure of INNOV exhibits a count-data characteristic with non-negative integer values and more than 70% of the total sample did not engage in innovation activities at all, this study relies on the zero-inflated Poisson regression in the robustness test.

We have shown that firms led by female CEOs exhibit a greater probability of being innovators. Further, firm size increases the positive effect of female CEOs on firms' probability of engaging in innovation activities. Further, we also find that when female CEOs manage women-owned firms, their firms are more likely to engage in innovation activities.

This study cannot further investigate the causal relationship between CEO gender and corporate innovation (e.g. by analyzing whether CEOs with different gender affects firm innovation) because it relies on the World Bank Enterprise Survey data. Nevertheless, this study suggests that stakeholders, especially in developing countries like Indonesia, need to encourage more women to hold CEO positions, especially in larger firms, because women-led firms perform better in innovation activities.

Our study thus highlights that female CEOs outperform their male counterparts in innovation activities. These results support the argument that because of gender-based discrimination that they receive, female CEOs are greatly motivated to exhibit greater innovation performance. Further, it is more difficult for women to hold the CEO positions in larger firms because of these firms' more intense managerial job market.

Iceland, along with the other Nordic countries, is seen as an international frontrunner in gender equality and equal sharing of responsibility for paid and unpaid work is part of the official ideology. Nevertheless, the number of women in leadership positions remains low. The purpose of this study is to analyse the practices that (re)produce power imbalances between women and men in business leadership both at the macro and the micro levels. This is done by using two theoretical explanations: gendered organizational practices and the interplay of organizations and family life.

The mixed methods are applied by analysing 51, semi-structured interviews with female and male business leaders and survey data from CEOs and executives from the 250 largest companies in Iceland.

The analyses reveal gender differences and asymmetries in work life as well as within the family. Men have longer working hours than women, higher salaries and more job-related travelling. Women carry the dual burden of work and family to a higher degree than do men. By questioning and attempting to resist the organizational culture women risk further disadvantage. The situation of male and female leaders is therefore incomparable. This is a paradox and does not fit with the idea of the Nordic gender equality of a dual breadwinner society.

It is shown that lack of gender diversity in business leadership is based on gendered organizational practices as well as on power relations within families. These two aspects are mutually reinforcing and the originality of the study is to explore the interplay between them. The authors conclude that despite being the country at the forefront of gender equality in the world, neither organizational practices nor family relations recognize the different life experiences of women and men in Iceland. This is expressed in organizational practices and different access to time and support, which may hinder gaining gender equality in top leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the research question whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) and gender influence the likelihood of CEO turnover.

The author uses a large sample of firms over a 21-year period from 1992 to 2013 taken from firms cross-listed in the ESG STATS, Execucomp, and Compustat databases. Logistic regression is used to analyze the determinants of both CEO turnover and the gender of the newly hired CEO.

Firms with better social performance have higher rates of CEO turnover, performance notwithstanding. Further, for firms with decreasing financial performance, it is more likely they will replace their CEO if they have strong CSR vs firms with weak CSR records. In addition, as performance deteriorates, male CEOs will have a higher chance of being replaced relative to female CEOs. For female CEOs, other factors besides financial performance are important determinants of the likelihood of a turnover taking place.

This study finds support for the stakeholder theory of CSR and does not support entrenchment theory. It is the first study to look at CSR, CEO turnover, and gender issues concurrently.

For practitioners looking for tangible effects of CSR in the workplace, this paper provides evidence that it does matter in terms of CEO turnover. The findings suggest that CSR is acting as a deterrent to bad behavior on the part of executives in the face of weak financial performance in particular.

This study is the first to look at the impact of CSR on CEO turnover. Importantly, the findings suggest that CSR is not something that a firm decides or thinks about in the “right” financial environment but is rather an omnipresent focus embedded within the mission of the firm.

The motivation behind Section 953(b) of Dodd–Frank Act was the increasing pay inequality and supposed CEOs' rent extraction. It required public companies to disclose CEO-to-employee pay ratios. Using the ratios reported by S&P 1500 firms in 2017–18, this paper examines whether companies led by women and minority CEOs have lower ratios than those led by white male CEOs.

This paper uses multivariate regression along with a matched sample analysis to examine whether female and minority CEOs have higher CEO-to-employee pay ratios compared to male and white CEOs, controlling for other determinants of pay ratios.

Results indicate that CEO-to-employee pay ratios are 22–28% higher for female CEOs compared to their male counterparts, controlling for other determinants of pay ratios. There is, however, no statistically significant difference between the pay ratios of minority vs white male CEOs. Minority female CEOs have lower CEO-to-employee pay ratios than white female CEOs. Consistent with literature, larger and more profitable firms have higher CEO-to-employee pay ratios.

While prior studies on determinants of CEO-to-employee pay ratios have used either industry-level or self-reported data for a small subset of firms (resulting in selection bias), this paper uses firm-level data that are available for all S&P 1500 firms due to new disclosure requirements due to the Dodd–Frank Act Section 953(b). Moreover, this is the first paper to test whether gender or ethnicity of a CEO affects within-firm pay inequality.

This paper aims to examine whether CEO succession with gender change (male to female) affects audit fees in the Chinese setting. In addition, this study examines whether the relationship exists in both types of ownership, i.e. non-state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and SOEs.

This study uses data from all A-share non-financial firms listed on both the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) for the period 2009 to 2015. To draw inferences, this study uses pooled ordinary least squares regression as a baseline technique. This study performs sub-sample analyzes for robustness. To account for endogeneity, this study uses three techniques including firm fixed-effects regression, the two-step Heckman model and the system generalized method of moments (GMM).

This study documents a significantly negative relationship between CEO succession with gender change and audit fees. However, the negative effect of CEO succession on audit fees is more pronounced in non-SOEs than SOEs. This study also finds, in additional analyzes, a strong negative effect of female CEO succession on audit fees in sub-sample of large, high-risk, high-performance and firms audited by non-big auditors. The main finding is robust across three endogeneity techniques.

The findings add to the ongoing debate about the underrepresentation of women in key executive positions such as CEO. The results suggest that CEO succession from male to female has a favorable effect on the quality of internal monitoring mechanisms (due to the superior monitoring skills of women) and enhances the quality of financial reporting. The study has practical implications for regulatory bodies and corporate decision-makers; this study encourages them to look into considering women in the executive succession framework.

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the effect of CEO succession with gender change (male to female) on audit fees in the context of China and the existence of this relationship in non-SOEs and SOEs.

The purpose of this study is to examine the organizational and environmental antecedents to the appointment of a woman to a non-CEO top management team (TMT) position.

This study uses a conditional fixed effects logistic regression model to analyze non-CEO TMT appointment data collected from the S&P 500 between 2008 and 2016.

Women were more likely to be appointed to non-CEO TMT positions when a firm was undergoing strategic change, had slack resources, and was in a less munificent environment.

This article contributes to the literature concerning the antecedents of the selection of women to executive leadership (e.g. the glass cliff) roles by examining organizational and environmental contexts at the non-CEO TMT unit of analysis.