Chief executive officer power and board gender diversity

Abstract

This study explores the role of chief executive officer (CEO) power in determining board gender diversity. We constructed a CEO power index to measure gender diversity. We find that CEO power exerts a positive influence on board gender diversity. This finding is robust when compared to alternate measures of CEO power and board diversity. We also conduct various robustness and endogeneity tests, such as entropy balancing, two-stage least squares regression analysis, lead-lag specification, and system generalized method of moments, and our results survive in all cases. In the cross-sectional setup, we determine that firms with a larger board, a younger board, and higher level of institutional ownership most effectively influence the association between CEO power and gender diversity.