Female Leadership and Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

We study the effect of women in top corporate positions on a firm’s environmental performance. Building on existing insights about gender differences in social preferences and time orientation, we posit that a greater female involvement in board and managerial positions is associated with better environmental performance. Using a comprehensive panel of listed companies from around the world, we find strong support for this notion. However, when studying the interaction between the presence of women in board and managerial positions, we find a negative effect, consistent with the emergence of a power struggle between genders. We further show that the negative interaction effect emerges in firms that operate in cultural contexts that are open towards gender equality.