Male CEOs Research Articles

Everything is (Not) Negotiable: The Gender Startup Valuation Gap

We explore whether the established gender gap in entrepreneurial finance also extends to startup valuations. This study uses a comprehensive sample of 966 performance observations including all pre-money valuations of 106 venture capital (VC) funded startups in the high-tech industry from European and Latin American markets. We find that startups with female CEOs receive significantly lower valuations than firms with male CEOs after controlling for a wide range of startup characteristics. We build on the role congruity theory and explore the potential moderation effects of the self-initiation and negotiation experience on gender bias in VC deals. We find that in case of female-led startups, self-initiation aggravates the gender gap in their valuations, while negotiation experience mitigates the gender gap. Further, our results show that the gender bias on the investors' side plays a stronger role in the gender gap in valuations than that on the founders' side.

Board characteristics and performance of Indian banks

This paper aims at investigating the impact of variables explaining board characteristics of Indian banks on their performance. Forty eight Indian banks, covering the time period from 2008-2009 to 2017-2018 have been included in the sample. The variables explaining board characteristics of Indian banks which have been included are board size, CEO duality, board independence, gender diversity, age and tenure of the CEO and the chairperson. After incorporating other bank specific variables such as net interest margin, burden ratio, bank capital, liquidity, size, loan quality and macroeconomic variables such as economic growth and inflation, the results show that banks with female CEOs, younger CEOs and CEOs with larger tenures perform better than banks with male CEOs, older CEOs and CEOs with smaller tenures. The other variables representing board characteristics which have come out to be significant determinants of bank performance are board size and tenure of chairperson of the board.

CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio and CEO Diversity

The motivation behind Section 953(b) of Dodd-Frank Act was the increasing pay inequality and supposed CEOs’ rent extraction. It required public companies to disclose CEO-to-employee pay ratios. Using the ratios reported by S&P1500 firms in 2017-18, this paper examines whether companies led by women and minority CEOs have lower ratios than those led by white male CEOs. Results indicate that CEO-to-employee pay ratios are 22-28% higher for female CEOs compared to their male counterparts, controlling for other determinants of pay ratios. There is, however, no statistically significant difference between the pay ratios of minority vs. white male CEOs. Minority female CEOs have lower CEO-to-employee pay ratios than white female CEOs. Consistent with literature, larger and more profitable firms have higher CEO-to-employee pay ratios. While prior studies on determinants of CEO-to-employee pay ratios have used either industry-level or self-reported data for a small subset of firms (resulting in selection bias), this paper uses firm-level data that is available for all S&P 1500 firms because of new disclosure requirements due to the Dodd-Frank Act Section 953(b). Moreover, this is the first paper to test whether gender or ethnicity of a CEO affects within-firm pay inequality.

Drinking into Friends: Alcohol Drinking Culture and CEO Social Connections

The influences of a CEO’s social connections to a firm have received much attention. However, less has been investigated on between-CEOs differences in building connections. This paper is a step towards filling this gap by investigating whether CEOs social connections are influenced by China’s local alcohol drinking culture. We use the sample of Chinese listed companies to test our hypotheses. We find that CEOs whose firms are located in regions with strong alcohol drinking culture have more social connections, both inside and outside the firms. We further find that the drinking culture only significantly affects the social connections of male CEOs, but not female CEOs. These findings remain robust after accounting for endogeneity by instrumental variable approach. This paper introduces the role of local alcohol drinking culture in CEOs social capital accumulating and sheds new lights on the impact of local culture on CEOs behaviors.

부르디외의 계급이론을 이용한 중년 남성 CEO의 외모관리에서 나타나는 구별짓기 특성에 관한 연구

부르디외의 계급이론을 이용한 중년 남성 CEO의 외모관리에서 나타나는 구별짓기 특성에 관한 연구

Does CEO Turnover Matter? Empirical Evidence from the Philippines

This study investigated the market reaction to announcements of CEO turnovers in Philippine-listed companies between January 2008 and December 2018. Turnovers were classified concerning successors’ origin (internal versus external), turnover type (forced versus voluntary), and successors’ gender (male versus female). Event study methodology using the market model was employed to analyze the hand-collected sample of 136 CEO turnover announcements. Market reaction was significantly positive for internal, external, and voluntary turnover. The market reaction, however, was found to be significantly negative in the case of forced turnover. Similarly, concerning the gender difference, the result showed that market reaction was significantly negative for female CEO appointments and significantly positive for male CEOs. The results provide strong evidence that new CEOs’ selected attributes and the turnover’s characteristics are factors that have the explanatory power on the investor’s reaction. The contributions of this study to the literature are threefold. First, it serves as the first empirical evidence of market reaction to CEO turnover from the Philippines emerging market. This study also confirms the finding of the previous studies on CEO turnover by looking into several turnover categories, namely external, internal, forced, and voluntary. Finally, it enriches the limited empirical evidence on the CEOs’ gender effect on abnormal return surrounding the turnover announcement date.

Does an attractive partner make you a better leader? Only if you are a male!

We integrate the research on evolutionary leadership with the evolutionary psychology of mate choice to argue that a facially attractive partner signals unobservable leadership qualities of their mate, and thus, partner's attractiveness spills over to their mate's perceived leadership. Study 1 found that while partner's attractiveness enhanced the perceived leadership of male CEOs, female CEOs' leadership was downgraded in the presence of an attractive partner. Study 2 validated that the leadership penalty for female CEOs increased when they were seen with more attractive males than with less attractive males. Study 3 found that conservative candidates that were male benefitted more from an attractive partner than their liberal counterparts but female candidates were penalized regardless of political ideology. Our findings suggest that indirect cues that emanate from the partner are critical for leadership assessment. They invoke attributions that enhance the perceived leadership of males but disapprove of females as leaders.

CEO Gender-Based Termination Concerns: Evidence From Initial Severance Agreements

We theorize that female candidates considering CEO roles will perceive greater termination vulnerability in such roles than their male counterparts. We further theorize that indicators of recent organizational distress will exacerbate female CEO candidates’ perceptions of termination vulnerability, while the presence of female leaders will mitigate these concerns. To test our arguments, we examine the initial values of newly appointed female and male CEOs’ severance agreements from 2007 to 2014. Results support our arguments and begin to shed light on the factors that influence female executives’ concerns about CEO roles and ultimately firms’ ability to appoint female CEOs.

Face of CEO in corporate publicity affects viewer regard for the firm

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of head-and-shoulder photos of CEOs appearing in a publicity item to influence reader regard for the corporation linked to the CEO. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 investigated three factors, face of a male CEO (trustworthy versus less trustworthy), headline framing of a corporate merger (tax-dodge vs specialization strategy) and respondent gender, whereas Study 2 explored two factors, face of a CEO (male vs female) and headline framing. The primary dependent variable was respondent regard for the firm. Findings Study 1 resulted in a significant three-way interaction. Face of a male CEO moderated a two-way interaction between the gender and the headline. Women, as compared with men, responded particularly unfavorably to the combination of an untrustworthy face and a tax-dodge headline. In Study 2, a firm headed by a male CEO and engaged in a tax-dodge action was poorly regarded, whereas a firm headed by a female CEO pursuing the same action did not suffer a loss of regard. Research limitations/implications Only one framing device (headlines) was studied when there are multiple such devices. Also, overall regard for the firm is influenced by multiple factors. Originality/value Of the factors investigated (facial image, headline and reader gender), only one is controlled by the corporation – the image of the spokesperson presented to the media. Findings suggest less downside risk to reputation if the company uses only trustworthy-looking spokespersons. Also, a female CEO may be a reputational asset. Women reported significantly more positive feelings toward a corporation headed by a female CEO than a male CEO.

Softer Lips Tell Sweeter Lies

This study investigates the perceived and actual trustworthiness and truthfulness of female managers when using rhetoric to advertise their trustworthiness in public disclosure documents. We find that the stock market reacts more favorably to trust rhetoric if the document has been prepared under the responsibility of a female CEO rather than a male CEO. We rule out that this result could be driven by female and male CEOs talking about trust in different contexts. However, inconsistently with the notion that the trust rhetoric of women managers is more truthful than that of their male counterparts, trust rhetoric does not relate to less extensive earnings manipulation if such rhetoric stems from female CEOs compared to male CEOs. Moreover, the trust rhetoric of female CEOs is not justified by a subsequent superior one-year stock performance. Our results contradict the popular notion that higher female trustworthiness or truthfulness explains gender differences in accounting behavior.

Financial Constraints and R&D Investment: The Moderating Role of CEO Characteristics

How CEOs with different characteristics act differently on R&D investment under the condition of financial constraints is an important but understudied question towards firms’ sustainable innovation. Employing the dataset from China-Enterprise Survey 2012 of the World Bank, this study tests the impact of financial constraints on firms’ R&D investment and the moderating role of CEO characteristics. Empirical results show that: (1) firm’s financial constraints have a significant restricting effect on their R&D investment; (2) internal financial constraints have no significant restricting effect on R&D investment for firms with female CEOs in comparison with firms with male CEOs, while the external financial constraints have a significant restricting effect on R&D investment for both groups. (3) CEO experience has a non-linear moderating effect on the relationship between financial constraints and a firm’s R&D investment. When the accumulated experience is overloaded, the positive moderating effect of CEO experience begins to decline and even become negative. Robustness tests further confirm these empirical findings. This study directly contributes to the literature of financing innovation and top management team’s impact on firms’ sustainable innovation, and generates insights on firms’ R&D management under the condition of financial constraints.

Why female board representation matters: The role of female directors in reducing male CEO overconfidence

Abstract We suggest a novel reason why there might be a need for female board representation. Female participation in the boardroom attenuates the CEO’s overconfident views about his firm’s prospects as we find that male CEOs at firms with female directors are less likely to hold deep-in-the-money options. Further, we argue that female board representation matters for industries where male CEO overconfidence is more prevalent. We find support for our argument as female directors are associated with less aggressive investment policies, better acquisition decisions, and improved financial performance for firms operating in industries with high overconfidence prevalence. We also identify a market failure around economic crises. Firms that do not have (sufficient) female board representation suffer a greater drop in performance as a result of the crisis than those that have female board representation.

Is there still a gender effect on CEO compensation?

PurposeDo female CEOs face a compensation gap? The purpose of this paper is to examine whether gender affects the total compensation of today’s CEOs, and whether it moderates ten factors influencing their total compensation.Design/methodology/approachTaking the 54 female CEOs cited in the US 2014 Fortune’s 1000 report, a matched sample of male CEOs was selected, matched according to the crosstab of age by education and by the sizes of the companies directed by these female CEOs.FindingsUsing four years’ worth of Fortune reports, between 2013 and 2016, this matched sample indicates that female CEOs are not discriminated against in terms of total compensation. However, eight factors do show a significant effect on total compensation. Using moderation analysis, the present study reveals how gender interacts with company size, sector, membership of outside boards and nature of previous experience.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper addresses an important and under-researched gap, with contradictory findings in the existing literature, by compiling and testing the characteristics of male and female CEOs which are not cited in Fortune 1000 reports.Originality/valueArguably, this is therefore one of the first papers to study gender differences in total compensation among Fortune 1000 CEOs using a matched sample technique, based on a larger number of female CEOs and a larger number of years than any previous research.

Stock Market Reaction to Female CEO Nominations: Is the Market Gendered?

Women suffer from glass ceiling barriers to reaching CEO positions. We argue that the stock market reaction to CEO appointments constitutes a barrier that is external to the firm and that is important to understand because investors can influence appointment decisions by buying or selling stocks. We build a trading experiment to causally identify the role of preferences, and we find evidence of gender homophily among participants. When a female CEO is appointed, female participants buy stocks, while male participants sell stocks. The opposite holds when a male CEO is appointed. This behavioral trait combined with the lack of gender diversity in the stock market can explain both the negative stock market reaction to female CEO appointments and the underrepresentation of female CEOs.

Are female CEOs more risk averse than male counterparts? Evidence from Vietnam

In this study, we examine the differences in risk preference between male and female CEOs of firms in Vietnam. Using firm fixed-effects and instrumental variable regressions, we find that female-managed firms are less likely to operate in industries with high levels of risk. Using decomposition analysis, we find that differences due to the observed characteristics of male- and female-managed firms account for 56% of the gap in the risk index between these firms. The differences due to coefficients of the characteristics explain around 58% of the gender gap in the risk index. Among characteristics of CEOs and firms, differences in CEO age and firm ownership contribute the most to the difference in the risk index between male- and female-managed firms.

Changes in hospital CEO profiles in Poland-Professionalisation of management?

To present and discuss the findings of surveys on the profiles of hospital CEOs in Poland, as carried out in 2012 and 2017, involving over a hundred hospital CEOs at various reference levels. The findings indicate appreciable changes in the group under study. While until recently, a typical hospital CEO was a male physician; presently, there is a fair proportion of women (36%). The majority of CEOs are non-physicians (63%), whereas previously, they accounted for approximately 63% of them. Mean work experience in public health care for male CEOs tends to decrease, whereas an opposite trend is well manifested with regard to female CEOs. It was also established that hospital CEOs were steadily less keen on improving their professional qualifications through postgraduate courses. These changes may imply a kind of "stabilisation" within the sector itself or a departure from the all-male, medicine-centred model of hospital management. They may have been caused by climbing expectations regarding overall management expertise and a higher salary level offered to physicians. Changes in individual work experience seem to indicate that men are more often "transplanted" from other industry sectors, whereas women tend to pursue their entire career path in public health care institutions.

Assessing a golden opportunity: CEO performance at McDonald’s

Assessing a golden opportunity: CEO performance at McDonald’s

How gender and emotions bias the credit decision-making in banking firms

This study sheds the light on the effect of the emotional bias and the gender on the credit risk management of Tunisian banks. We may expect that male and female CEO react differently to emotions and that gender-based behavior differences will affect the organizational design of the credit decision making. We opt for a Bayesian Net Work method which uses the variables to express the events or objects and analyze their behaviors to model such causal relationships. Results show that emotional bias can explain the cross-sectional heterogeneity in risk-taking behavior among banks and that managers’ gender types influences the propensity to delegate the credit decision making. Overconfident and optimist female banks’ manager are more conservative than males and they tend to centralize the credit decision-making process. Findings show also that financial literacy significatively affect the credit decision making, whereas bank size have no effect.

CEO gender, firm performance and agency costs: evidence from India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of CEO gender on the performance of Indian firms and to explain the economic channel for any such effect.Design/methodology/approachUsing a panel of 100 Indian firms, the authors test whether there is a significant difference in the performance – measured as return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) – of firms with male vs female CEOs, in both time and space dimensions, using the difference-in-differences approach.FindingsThe average ROA of the sample firms decrease by about 10 percent after a female enters the CEO role. This negative result remains robust in both the time series as well as cross-sectional analyses. The decline is also observed when using ROE to measure performance. Further, the authors show that this negative effect is associated with an increase in agency costs that is observed following the appointment of a female CEO.Originality/valuePrevious studies have produced mixed results regarding the effect of having a female CEO on firm performance, and the research to date has not explored the economic channel through which this effect occurs. In this study, the authors show that the decline in performance observed among Indian firms flows from an increase in agency costs under female management.

When do investors value board gender diversity?

PurposeThis paper aims to use the passage of the Italian Gender Diversity Law to help isolate the effects of board gender diversity on firm value by investigating conditions under which such diversity provides greater role-enhancing resources to the board.Design/methodology/approachThis paper used a one-day event study to measure when gender diversity matters to investors. Abnormal returns from Italian firms were used to study investors’ anticipated outcomes of the effect of gender diversity on firm value.FindingsBoard gender diversity is financially beneficial especially for firms with a male dual CEO and board chair and with few or no women on board committees and firms that operate in industries with greater levels of competition. Addition of these moderators more than doubles the variance explained. Moreover, the effect of gender is isolated in this study, which examined investor reaction to the expectation of increases in the number of female board members, rather than to specific female appointees.Social implicationsDetermining the conditions when a gender diverse matters to firm value is important for shareholders, policymakers and advocates for gender equality. The findings illustrate precise conditions for stakeholders to make the case for board gender diversity as achieving financial reward, in addition to societal benefit.Originality/valueThe value of a gender diverse board is contingent on the company’s need for diverse resources (e.g. more competition, lack of gender diversity on committees or CEO duality). This paper provides insight as to why prior research linking board gender diversity to firm value finds seemingly contradictory results. Thus, this paper provides useful insights for researchers, boards and legislative bodies.