The Impact of National Culture on Firm Gender Diversity

Abstract

Extant literature in organizational inequality shows that environmental forces affect firm gender equality outcomes. While there is evidence that national gender culture affects individual economic outcomes, little is known about the influence of national gender culture at the firm-level. In this article, I use the context of cross-border acquisitions to study how national culture shapes firms’ arrangements towards gender equality as I explore how foreign acquisitions affect workplace gender equality at acquired firms. I use restricted-access employer-employee data from France matched to M&A data. I use a generalized differences-in differences approach to estimate the impact of acquirer national gender culture on gender equality outcomes at acquired firms after an acquisition. I find that firms acquired by acquirers from more gender egalitarian countries see a larger increase in female representation in management and larger decrease in gender pay gap post-acquisition, compared to firms that get acquired by acquirers from less gender egalitarian countries. This main effect is stronger when the post-acquisition integration process is more thorough and when a new CEO is appointed at the acquired firm.