Gender gap, training and financial performance: evidence from public accounting industry

Abstract

This study examines the effects of training on organization-level financial performance for male-owned and female-owned audit firms. We define audit firms whose auditors take professional training as non-violator firms and whose auditors do not take professional training as violator firms. Regression results indicate that financial performance of non-violator audit firms is better than that of violator firms. Male-owned audit firms are superior in financial performance to female-owned ones. Male-owned violator firms even outperform female-owned non-violator firms. In addition, the extent of financial performance effect of training in the female-owned audit firms is higher compared to the male-owned firms. Findings gained in this study indicate that gender-role stereotype dominates the determination of financial performance of Taiwanese audit firms due to the Chinese cultural values in social roles against women. This study extends prior studies on training and gender gap, contributing knowledge to the extant literatures.