Female CEOs and Top Management Team Composition: A Quasi-Experiment of the One-Child Policy in China

Abstract

Does the presence of a female CEO facilitate or impede the promotion of other women into top management team? To address this theoretical puzzle, we apply a quasi-experiment design by using the one-child policy in China as an external shock to compare two birth cohorts of CEOs who were born before and after the implementation year. Results show that in general, female CEOs have a female preference in selecting and hiring members in TMT compared to their male counterparts. But this preference decreases dramatically after the implementation of the one-child policy. This study contributes to the literature on the antecedents of TMT composition and the effects of female CEOs. Furthermore, we emphasize and call attention to the importance of social contexts when discussing issues on TMT composition.