Top Management Team Gender Diversity Research Articles

Gender diversity in top management team and corporate social responsibility performance: examining the moderating nature of TMT international experience

Purpose This study is based on the role congruity theory that examines the association between top management team (TMT) gender diversity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Design/methodology/approach This study uses data from the Taiwan Economic Journal database and the Market Observation Post System provided by the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The sample consists of 4,140 annual observations of Taiwanese-listed companies in the electronics industry from 2016–2020. Findings The results revealed that TMT gender diversity is positively associated with CSR performance, and TMT international experience strengthens the positive association between TMT gender diversity and CSR performance. Practical implications CSR is imperative. The TMT’s gender diversity aligns with current environmental trends and social expectations, driven for CSR implementation essential. This diverse configuration enables the TMTs to address corporate adaptability and maintain global competitiveness. Originality/value The findings contribute significantly to the literature on TMT gender diversity by extending the application of role congruity theory beyond individual to team-level contexts and across gender boundaries. By incorporating diverse capabilities such as international experience within TMTs, the authors identify key boundary conditions that foster CSR. This expansion not only aligns with practical realities but also opens new avenues for research into the dynamics of diverse management teams.

Exploring the impact of corporate entrepreneurship on organizational performance in the ICT companies of Jordan: The moderating role of gender-diverse leadership

This study focuses on addressing challenges faced by Jordanian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) organizations, aiming to explore solutions for sector sustainability amid troubling economic conditions. Specifically, it investigates the impacts of Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) and Top Management Team Gender Diversity (TMTGD) on the performance of these organizations. Furthermore, it also examines the moderating role of TMTGD within this context. To achieve these objectives, the study collects data from 300 employees considered part of the top management teams within Jordan's ICT sector. Utilizing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the study estimated both measurement and structural models to thoroughly examine the data and proposed relationships. The findings indicate that CE and TMTGD have positive and statistically significant effects on organizational performance. However, the study also uncovers a nuanced pattern of interaction between these variables. Explicitly, it suggests that the presence of gender diversity within top management teams may attenuate the otherwise positive impact of CE on organizational performance. Hence, this research suggests that ICT companies should actively cultivate a corporate entrepreneurship culture to elevate their organizational performance. Furthermore, policymakers and leaders are encouraged to initiate training and educational programs addressing gender dynamics and biases with the goal of fostering a more inclusive and equitable workplace.

Gender diversity in top management teams and corporate reputation: Evidence from Spanish listed companies

AbstractCompanies gain significant advantages from having a favorable corporate reputation (CR), so researchers have analyzed the factors that contribute to the formation and maintenance of this intangible asset. One of these variables could be gender diversity in management. This study drew on stakeholder, signaling, and critical mass theories to explore how women in firms' top management teams (TMTs) can influence these organizations' CR. A sample of data on Spanish listed companies were collected for the period of 2017–2022. The results reveal that a positive relationship exists between gender diversity in TMTs and CR and that this relationship is moderated by women on boards of directors and by board independence. The findings contribute to the literature by providing evidence of top management's influence on CR. This empirical research also expands the literature on gender diversity in organizations by demonstrating that the positive impact of gender diversity on CR extends beyond boards of directors.

Top management team gender diversity and power dynamics in times of change

Abstract Extant research examining the effects of top management team (TMT) gender diversity on firm performance report equivocal findings. We seek to enhance understanding of this critical relationship in the context of an acquisition, which necessitates changes in one or both firms during a process characterized by non-routine decisions, time pressures, high uncertainty, and frequent debates among strategic leaders. Specifically, we examine the effects of gender diversity of top management and female executives’ formal and informal power on post-deal performance. Our results indicate gender diversity has negative effects on post-deal performance. Further, in a subsample of acquirers with gender diverse teams, our results reveal that female executives’ structural power and ownership power have negative performance effects, while power conferred through an elite education has positive performance effects. Our findings highlight the need to expand gender diversity research to consider the strategic context facing diverse TMTs and power dynamics among them.

Women in C-suite: Does Top Management Team gender diversity matter? Evidence from firm investment efficiency

Firms with relatively more female executives in their top management team exhibit superior investment efficiency. Economically, female non-CEO executives increase investment efficiency by almost 11 % of the cross-sectional mean of our investment efficiency measure. Further analysis shows that this increase in efficiency is driven by the reduction in both overinvestment and underinvestment. In addition, efficiency is more pronounced in less competitive markets, during industry shock periods, and in firms with less competent or outsider CEOs. Our findings highlight that women in C-suite play a significant positive role in effective investment decision-making.

Top management team gender diversity and green innovation: A contingent curvilinear link

AbstractThe increasing significance of green innovation for firm competitiveness introduces greater risks and uncertain returns, challenging top managers' strategic decisions. The influence of top management team (TMT) characteristics, particularly gender diversity, on green innovation remains unclear. Drawing on gender difference and social identity theories, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between TMT gender diversity and green innovation among 2026 Chinese publicly listed manufacturing firms from 2011 to 2018. Through the use of fixed‐effects Poisson models to confirm our hypotheses, we uncover an inverted U‐shaped relationship between TMT gender diversity and green innovation. Furthermore, we delve into the contingent roles of individual, corporate, and industry factors affecting this primary relationship. Specifically, our findings reveal that the educational attainment of female executives and the strength of green industry innovation flatten the inverted U‐shaped curve between TMT gender diversity and green innovation, whereas state ownership steepen it. Our study resolves the inconsistencies found in previous research by integrating multiple theoretical perspectives and offers empirical insights into the role of women in shaping sustainable development in emerging markets.

Does top executive gender diversity matter for the value relevance of ESG controversies? Empirical evidence from European tech firms

Purpose Interest in environmental, social and governance (ESG) controversies is acquiring great relevance in the business and academic communities. Nonetheless, previous studies in the area have devoted little attention to how the market views ESG controversies. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to investigate whether ESG controversies are value-relevant to investors, as reflected in equity values. It also investigates whether top management team (TMT) gender diversity is likely to affect the association between ESG controversies and equity market values in the context of high-tech firms. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a sample of high-tech firms listed on the STOXX 600 index during the period 2006–2022. The ESG data for the sample is retrieved from the Refinitiv Eikon database. This paper adopts a fixed-effect panel regression to test the hypotheses. Findings Based on the Ohlson’s (1995) valuation framework, the authors find evidence that ESG controversies are associated with a lower market valuation, suggesting that shareholders perceive ESG controversies as conveying negative information about future performance. The authors also find evidence that TMT gender diversity negatively moderates the relationship between ESG controversies and equity values, indicating that TMT gender diversity alleviates the detrimental effect of corporate controversies. These results remain consistent when using the return model of Easton and Harris (1991). Originality/value This paper throws more light on the economic consequences of ESG controversies in European high-tech firms. This is particularly important due to the increasing importance of ESG criteria in guiding investment choices. This paper also adds to the current literature by providing new evidence that the value-relevance of ESG controversies is affected by TMT gender diversity.

Parent firm reputational risk and TMT gender diversity of foreign subsidiaries

In this study, we fill an important gap in the literature by examining the impact of parent firms’ reputational risk on subsidiary top management team gender diversity (TMTGD). Drawing on signalling theory and framing TMTGD as a nonmarket social and political strategy, we hypothesize that foreign subsidiaries use gender diversity in their upper echelons in response to increased parent firms’ reputational risk to signal a commitment to gender equality causes and socio-economic development in host countries. Analyzing data from publicly traded Chinese foreign subsidiaries, we found support for our hypothesis. We also found that the impact of parent reputational risk on subsidiary TMTGD is contingent on subsidiary primary activity, host-country institutional gender parity, and home-host country institutional distance. This study makes important contributions to the international business corpus, especially to reputational risk and nonmarket strategy literature domains.

Women in C-suite: Does Top Management Team gender diversity matter? Evidence from firm investment efficiency.

Women in C-suite: Does Top Management Team gender diversity matter? Evidence from firm investment efficiency.

Institutional ownership and women in the top management team

The business community is interested in the issue of gender representation in the workplace and within the top management team (TMT). One avenue for increasing gender diversity of the TMT is pressure from shareholders. Institutional investors have largely replaced individual shareholders, and some institutions are outspoken about gender issues in the workplace. We appeal to stakeholder theory to develop the hypothesis about the impact of institutional ownership on TMT gender diversity. Empirical results show that institutional ownership is linked to higher proportion of top female executives. Our results also suggest that institutional investors achieve greater gender diversity of the TMT by making corporate boards conform to favored characteristics.

The influence of top management team gender diversity on firm performance during stable periods and economic crises: An instrumental variable analysis

Does a greater representation of women in top management teams (TMTs) contribute to higher firm performance? Although several studies have investigated this question, they have failed to sufficiently account for endogeneity. We address the endogeneity problem by using an instrumental variable (IV) design to estimate the causal effect of women’s representation in TMTs on firm performance. We use a shift-share or Bartik-type instrument, which is well-established in economics but has received little attention in management and leadership research. We analyze the effect of TMT gender diversity on four types of firm performance: profitability, market-based performance, liquidity, and growth. Our sample is based on firms in the S&P 1,500, which we observe over 24 years (1997–2020). Our findings indicate that TMT gender diversity positively affects the profitability, liquidity, and growth of firms but does not impact market-based performance. We also analyze whether the effect of TMT gender diversity was stronger during two economic crises, namely the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, but our instrumental variable analysis provides no evidence for such an interaction effect. Our results are robust to multiple alternative specifications. This study contributes to research on strategic leadership, specifically regarding the effect of women leaders, as well as the crisis leadership literature.

Does leadership gender diversity drive corporate social responsibility and organizational outcomes? The role of organization size

Corporate scandals, environmental damages, and employment conditions have highlighted the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, little is known about (1) the simultaneous effects of board and top management team (TMT) gender diversity on CSR, (2) the mediating role of CSR between leadership (board/TM) gender diversity and organizational outcomes, and (3) the above-noted effects vary between large versus small organizations. Drawn from social role theory, we test our hypotheses using multisource time-lagged data from 248 organizations. The results indicate that both board and TMT gender diversity are positively associated with CSR. Moreover, CSR had a positive effect on both perceived organizational performance and employee productivity, with CSR also mediating the relationship between board gender diversity and perceived organizational performance. The findings also show the moderating effect of organization size on the CSR–organizational outcomes relationship. Our results refine (differential effects of gender diversity on CSR depending on the role), extend (some unprecedented effects were found for perceived organizational performance and employee productivity), and qualify (effects were significant for large organizations) social role theory. Our research addresses the above-noted knowledge gaps and informs the contextual leadership gender diversity practice for improved CSR and organizational outcomes. JEL Classification: M12, M14

Open-up or stay closed: the effect of TMT gender diversity on open innovation

PurposeDespite the importance of top management team (TMT) gender diversity in a firm's strategic decisions and the high degree of innovation activities that several firms have experienced in recent years, little or no research has examined how TMT gender diversity affects a firm's open innovation decision. The authors examine how TMT gender diversity impacts firms' open innovation activities. The authors further examine how this impact is affected by women executives' personal attributes and institutional conditions.Design/methodology/approachThe sample comprised of 62,745 firm-year observations (9,831 firms) from 25 countries from 1990 to 2010. The authors employed the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to estimate the results.FindingsEmploying novel panel data on co-owned patents across 25 economies, the authors find that proportion of women in TMTs has a positive impact on open innovation activities. Moreover, the authors find that women managers' power and institutional gender parity strengthen the association between gender diversity and open innovation.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study indicate that firms committed to optimizing their open innovation policies and practices should include women in TMTs and create such conditions that are supportive for women executives to effectively express their innate inclinations. Importantly, our study supports the business case for gender diversity in top leadership positions by providing a compelling evidence for the positive impact of TMT gender diversity on open innovation.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the gender diversity literature by showing how women leaders' values and character become embedded in their companies' strategy and present empirical evidence that having women in TMTs increase the likelihood of conducting open innovation. Further, the authors show how women executives' power and institutional level gender parity provide boundary conditions that moderate the relationship between TMT gender diversity and open innovation.

Top management team gender diversity and the financial performance of Vietnamese SMEs: family and non-family owned firms

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the gender diversity of top management teams (TMTs) on the financial performance (FP) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. This paper also examines the moderating effect of family control on this relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of SMEs in Vietnam, this paper uses descriptive statistics and balance panel regression with random effect to analyse 5,160 firm-year observations of family- and non-family-owned SMEs between 2011 and 2015.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that gender diversity in TMTs shows a negative relationship with the FP of family-controlled SMEs and no significant impact on FP of non-family SMEs. This study also illustrates a positive curvilinear relationship between the female manager rate in TMTs and firms’ FP in family SMEs.Research limitations/implicationsThis research study is limited to data from Vietnamese SMEs. Future studies could investigate these relationships with larger firms and in a broader geographical context.Originality/valueThis study provides a better understanding of the impact of TMT gender diversity on FP in Vietnamese SMEs while considering the moderating effect of family control. The findings support some theories relating to managerial gender diversity and the effect of family control on this diversity in family SMEs.

Women in top management teams and their impact on innovation

In this study, we integrate insights from the literature on top management team (TMT) composition, gender diversity, and cumulative innovation, and examine how TMT gender diversity (or women in TMTs) impacts firm innovation. We analyze a panel of U.S. firms over the period 2005–2019, exploiting U.S. state-level variation in support policies protecting the rights of female workers. We find that greater TMT gender diversity increases the number of innovations but decreases their impact. Furthermore, greater TMT gender diversity narrows the breadth of search (search becomes more local). We illuminate the multifaceted innovation outcomes of gender-diverse TMTs and highlight the risk-reducing effects of female TMT members in innovation contexts. Our study provides opportune innovation insights that are much needed in the current era, with the increasing presence of female executives in TMTs.

Enhancing innovation through gender diversity: a two-country study of top management teams

PurposeBuilding on upper echelons theory, the authors advance the literature on the influence of diversity on innovation by studying the link between top management team (TMT) gender diversity and innovation performance and the link's boundary conditions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze survey data from 390 manufacturing establishments in Germany and India through an ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis.FindingsTMT gender diversity is positively related to innovation performance. The influence of gender diversity on innovation performance is not strengthened by team level attributes, including cognitive proficiency and openness to external information. In contrast, TMT gender diversity enhances innovation performance more strongly in Germany than in India, indicating the relevance of country-level cultural norms for leveraging gender diversity.Research limitations/implications The authors' study is built on data from two countries only, based on TMTs in the manufacturing sector and cross-sectional. Future studies may address these limitations by considering more countries, examining TMTs in the service sector and applying experimental or longitudinal research designs.Practical implicationsExecutives should establish gender diverse TMTs to enhance innovation performance and leverage diverse views of male and female managers effectively. Managers located in countries with strongly hierarchical cultural norms should promote egalitarian values at the organizational level to increase the effectiveness of gender diverse TMTs.Originality/valueThis is the first study which examines the moderating effect of country-level cultural norms on the relationship between TMT gender diversity and innovation performance.

Women leaders and corporate social performance: do critical mass, CEO managerial ability and corporate governance matter?

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of top management team (TMT)'s gender diversity on corporate social performance (CSP). It sheds light on inconsistent results in literature by testing the moderator effects of chief executive officer (CEO) managerial ability and corporate governance (CG) on such impact.Design/methodology/approachA dynamic panel estimator is applied to an international sample of 8640 firm‐year observations from 2013 to 2017.FindingsThe author finds reliable evidence that the critical mass of at least three women leaders has a positive impact on the firm's CSP. Obtained results suggest, moreover, the deterrence effects of CEO managerial ability and CG tools (board independence, board gender diversity, the presence of a corporate social responsibility committee and family control) on the women leaders' contribution to the firm's CSP level. These results remain consistent with alternative measures for women leaders and CEO managerial ability. However, findings are lost when women achieve the CEO position, the chairperson position or both positions, which imply that men and women leadership styles are closely similar rather than different. Furthermore, women leaders' effect on CSP seems dependent (do not) on the country (industry) which a firm belongs to.Practical implicationsFrom a practical standpoint, the study highlights the importance of fostering the achievement of a critical mass of women leaders and the combination of CEO managerial ability – educational/professional backgrounds – and CG attributes to improve the firm's CSP. The study has important implications for investors and regulators. If investors wish to increase CSP, they should ask for more gender diversified TMTs. Furthermore, this study supports regulators in their efforts to increase senior women's quotas by providing empirical evidence of better social outcomes under leader gender diversity. The study’s evidence is also useful for companies in setting the criteria to identify CEOs who can support their strategic decisions.Originality/valueBy studying the impact female leaders have on CSP under CEO managerial ability and CG as moderators, this study is the first to display complementarities and substitutions between CEO's managerial ability and selected CG attributes in the promotion of CSP by female senior executives. Furthermore, it fills the void on how TMT's gender diversity impact CSP. In fact, while it is conventionally considered that women are more likely to engage in socially responsible activities, sensitive findings of this study shed light on the brighter side of female executives when they achieve the CEO, the chairperson position or both positions.

Top management team gender diversity and firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the link between top management team (TMT) gender diversity and firm risk-taking in hospitality companies. The study also links female leadership to risk-taking. Finally, this study examines the moderating effects of TMT incentive pay and TMT age on the relationship between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an unbalanced data set of 81 hospitality firms and 888 firm-year observations over the period of 1992–2020. The study uses fixed-effects regression estimation for primary analyses and addresses potential endogeneity concerns via two-stage least square regression with firm fixed-effects instrumental variable regression. Risk-taking is measured by total firm risk (i.e. the annualized volatility of daily stock returns). Main results are supported with alternative measures of firm risk and estimation methods.FindingsThe study finds that increasing TMT gender diversity leads to a reduction in firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry. Moreover, the study finds that hospitality firms led by a female CEO experience lower firm risk compared to firms led by a male CEO. Finally, the study finds evidence that the relationship between TMT gender diversity and firm risk is contingent on the level of incentive pay awarded to TMT members and the age of TMT members. Increasing incentive pay and aging executive teams decrease the risk reduction effect of TMT gender diversity.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study recommend that firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry is related to gender diversity in TMTs. Hence, the board of directors should pay attention to gender composition for executive positions for risk management. Moreover, the results also suggest that care should be exercised when using incentive pay to align the interests of managers and shareholders. Finally, the board of directors needs to consider both gender diversity and age of the TMT members for TMT composition to manage executives’ risk-taking behavior.Originality/valueThis study fills a research gap in the hospitality literature by providing empirical evidence for the link between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking. Additionally, the study introduces incentive pay and age of TMT as contingency factors for the link between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking.

The Effect of Top Management Team Gender Diversity on Climate Change Management: An International Study

The aim of this research was to assess the effect of top management team gender diversity on firms’ effective commitment to climate change management from two new perspectives: a more detailed analysis of gender diversity in corporate management and an international analysis of the phenomenon. Broadening climate change management assessment through selected CDP qualitative metrics for governance, risk management and strategy provides a more in-depth view of climate change managerial practices. Even though a growing body of academic literature highlights the potential positive impact of gender diversity, this empirical research based on a sample of 836 firms from 16 developed countries provides mainly inconclusive results. These results may be explained first by a still insufficient and below critical mass, percentage of women within top management teams; and second, by a selection bias, as only the best performers disclose their climate change management data. This also calls for companies to improve their gender diversity among the top management team, and for regulators to further extend compulsory climate change management reporting.

The impact of TMT gender diversity on corporate environmental strategy in emerging economies

Drawing on upper echelon theory, we examine how top management team (TMT) gender diversity impacts the adoption of environmental standards in emerging countries. We further examine how this impact is affected by women executives’ personal attributes as well as organizational and institutional conditions. Using panel data from 490 firms in three highly polluted emerging countries (China, India and Pakistan) and employing Probit instrumental variable regressions, we find that the proportion of women in TMTs is positively related to the likelihood of ISO 14001 certification and renewal. Additionally, we find that high institutional gender parity, women executives’ power and CSR committees strengthen this relationship. Our findings, which demonstrate a systematic translation of women’s values into environmental strategy, make important contributions to literature and practice.