The rise of female board representation in China as a glocalization process (2010–2018)

Abstract

Our examination of publicly listed firms in China (2010–2018) reveals that a firm promotes more women to its board when it faces either stronger global pressure, as measured by the ownership of global institutional investors, or stronger local pressure, as measured by the domestic industry average of female board representation. Local pressure has a stronger impact than global pressure, and the two substitute each other. More importantly, stronger global pressure is associated with the promotion of more returnee women but not of domestic women, while stronger local pressure is associated with the promotion of more domestic women but not of returnee women. The findings advance the literature by revealing that the adoption of female board representation in China is driven by the co-constitutive influences of “the global” and “the local”, and that different types of potential beneficiaries receive heterogeneous benefits in this glocalization process.