Do religion and politics impact corporate governance diversity policy?

PurposeIn this paper, the authors examine how religious and political factors affect a firm's corporate governance diversity policies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop five basic empirical models. Model 1 examines how religious beliefs and political affiliation determine whether a firm will establish diversity incentive in its senior executives' performance assessment. Model 2 investigates how the diversity goal, religious beliefs and political affiliation separately affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 3 examines how the diversity goal and environmental factors interact to affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 4 and Model 5 examine whether the diversity incentive in senior executives' compensation plan and the environmental factors (religious belief and political affiliation) help to reduce the compensation differentials between male and female executives.FindingsThe authors find that firms located in more liberal counties with more Mainline Protestants and less Republican voters in the United States are more likely to include workforce diversity as a criterion in evaluating their senior executives. The authors also provide evidence that firms with diversity goals have more female directors, more female senior executives and more minority directors. However, they find no evidence that the compensation differentials between male and female executives are smaller in these firms. Finally, they find that external environment affects the effectiveness of the implementation of the diversity goals.Originality/valueIn line withthis branch of research, the authors expand the literate on the link between corporate culture and corporate decision-making by investigating the non-financial performance measures. Besides the corporate decision-making in investment, financial reporting and social responsibilities as documented in prior studies, the authors argue that the religious beliefs and political affiliations could also affect the development and implementation of corporate non-financial performance goals in executive incentive contracts.

EXPRESS: Theorising work-life balance endeavours as a gendered project of the self: The case of senior executives in Denmark

Recent work-life balance (WLB) studies offer considerable insight into the challenges and strategies of achieving WLB for senior managers. This study shifts the focus from asking how to asking why individuals are so invested in pursuing a particular kind of WLB. Through analysing 62 life history interviews with male and female senior executives in Denmark, we develop the concept of the gendered project of the self to theorise WLB. We show how for the executives, WLB was not simply an instrumental process of time or role management; instead, pursuing WLB in a certain way was a key part of acquiring and maintaining a particular desired subjectivity or a sense of self as a better person, better worker, and better parent. We argue that theorising WLB as the gendered project of the self allows us to explicate the mechanisms through which gendered social and cultural expectations translate into how male and female executives can and want to pursue their WLB goals—firstly by driving one’s desire for WLB and, secondly, by shaping and restricting what is desired. In doing so we highlight the importance of scrutinising the role of broader WLB discourses in shaping the experience and uptake of organisational WLB policies.

Management gender diversity, executives compensation and firm performance

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the executives’ team and firm performance by investigating the relationships between executives’ compensation, management gender diversity and firm financial performance in growth enterprises market (GEM) listed firms in China. Design/methodology/approach Data are collected from 461 companies listed on GEM boards during the period from the year 2016 to 2018. Specifically, executives’ compensation and female executives are set as the independent variables, and the proxy selected of corporate performance is Tobin’s Q ratio. Findings The results show that the correlation between corporate performance and executive cash payment is not significant, while executives’ equity-based compensation shows a significant positive correlation with firm performance. In addition, the participation of female executives is negatively associated with firm performance. Research limitations/implications The results have practical implications for governments, policymakers and regulatory authorities, by indicating the importance of women to corporate success. In particular, the findings of this paper emphasize the specific background of GEM in China and provide empirical support for the value of women’s participation in corporate governance. In addition, the finding on the relationship between executive compensation and corporate performance of GEM listed companies provides guidance for the establishment of a performance compensation system of GEM listed companies in China. Originality/value This paper provides new evidence for the current literature of executive team and corporate performance. This is the first paper to adopt triangulation in theories from different disciplines including optimal contractual approach, managerial power approach as new perspectives of agency theory, upper echelons theory, motivational-hygiene theory and women leadership style theory. The results will contribute to provide guidance for enterprises to formulate an efficient compensation system and build a reasonable senior management team structure.

CFO gender in curbing CEO dominance on overpriced acquisition premiums

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the tempering effect of the presence of a female chief financial officer (CFO) on potentially dominant chief executive officer (CEO) behavior expressed through the overvaluing of acquisition premiums.Design/methodology/approachThis study used Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database data over an eight-year period to analyze the relationships between CEO dominance and the acquisition premiums paid in an acquisition deal. The study also analyzes the effect of CFO gender in curbing CEO dominance in the acquisition deals. The authors employ clustered standard errors ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis along with robustness testing, which supports the validity of our conclusions.FindingsThe authors expect and find that as CEO dominance rises, so does the acquisition premium; however, the presence of a female CFO in such situations significantly reduces the overpayment of the acquisition premium.Practical implicationsThe study findings advocate for organizational change in the form of an increased presence of female CFOs within business organizations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the accounting literature by timely exploiting a rising trend in which female executives are expected to become more prolific. The authors’ research indicates that their entrenchment into business organizations, thereby promoting gender diversity, produces beneficial outcomes for those organizations. It also capitalizes on the specific attributes of the CEO–CFO relationship, which lends itself to particular effectiveness in the hands of female CFOs.

The Impact of Executives’ Gender, Financial Incentives, and Shareholder Pressure on Corporate Social and Ecological Investments

Archival research suggests that female executives have an impact on corporate decision-making and generally finds positive associations between female board representation and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance. However, archival research does not reveal why female executives decide differently in the context of CSR. As this is our starting point, we conduct an experiment and examine executives’ decision-making in terms of CSR investment. While female executives seem to be more oriented towards social and ecological practices, we find strong evidence that participants’ real-world incentive program mainly drives their CSR decision-making. We also examine if selected gender-specific character traits (risk propensity, sustainability attitude, and empathy) cause gender differences in executives’ CSR decision-making. In an exploratory analysis, we furthermore show that executives’ risk propensity affects their CSR decision-making conditional on the level of shareholder pressure they face. Our study contributes to the literature on executives’ decision-making and to the CSR literature by enhancing our understanding of determinants of executives’ CSR decision-making.

The Moderating Effect of the Presence of Female Executives on the Relationship Between Accounting Conservatism and Cash Holdings

This paper aims to providing evidence for a relationship that could be established between accounting conservatism and cash holdings and to integrating the moderating effect of the presence of women directors on this relationship. The study was carried out on a sample of 100 French companies listed in the SBF120 index over a 5 year period. In general, the results show that the effect of accounting conservatism on the holding of liquidity is positive and significant and that the role of female administrators reinforces this relationship.

Effect of female executives on Chinese cultural media enterprise efficiency

Purpose As more women are now being appointed to senior and top management positions and invited to sit on boards of directors, they are now directly participating in strategic company decision-making. As female directors have been found to provide new ideas, increase company competitiveness, efficiency and performance and bring a greater number of external resources to a company than male directors, this paper aims to put female directors as a variable into the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and statistical models to explore the effect of female directors on operating performances. The DEA first quantified and measured the company efficiencies, after which the statistical model analyzed the correlations between the variables to specifically identify the impact of female decision makers on the operating efficiencies in state-owned and private enterprises. Design/methodology/approach A novel two-stage, meta-hybrid dynamic DEA was developed to explore Chinese cultural media company efficiencies under optimal input and output resource allocations, after which Tobit Regression was applied to determine the effect of female executives on these efficiencies. Findings From 2012 to 2016, the overall efficiencies in Chinese state-owned cultural media enterprises were better than in the private cultural media enterprises. The overall technology gaps (TGs) in the state-owned cultural media enterprises were better than in the private cultural media enterprises. Originality/value Previous research has tended to focus on the causal relationships between female senior executives and business performances; however, there have been few studies on the relationships between female executives and company performance from an efficiency perspective (optimal resource allocation). This paper, therefore, is the first to develop a novel two-stage, meta-hybrid dynamic DEA to examine Chinese cultural media enterprise efficiencies, and the first to apply Tobit Regression to assess the effect of female executives on those efficiencies.

A Configurational Exploration of How Female and Male CEOs Influence Their Compensation

The issues of excessive CEO compensation and gender pay gaps garner much attention from management scholars and the general public. In this study, we integrate these topics and explore the complex interdependent nature of how CEOs influence directors’ evaluative perceptions about appropriate levels of CEO compensation and whether female and male CEOs do so in different ways. Drawing from role congruity theory and previous research on executive compensation, we use a configurational approach to identify how CEOs achieve high levels of compensation through different combinations of influence arising from their power, origin, tenure, similarities with evaluators, and organizational conditions. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis with a matched pair sample of female and male CEOs from 2010 to 2016, we find there are multiple configurations of influence conditions by which female and male CEOs achieve high compensation. Our inductive analysis, unpacking how these configurations differ between female and male CEOs, shows four distinct influence mechanisms: leveraging power and role empathy, trailblazer responsibility, leveraging power and similarity, and leveraging role empathy. These mechanisms highlight the ways influence conditions complement or mutually reinforce one another in different ways for female and male CEOs. Implications for theory and research about the unique challenges female executives face in achieving equitable treatment in the workplace are also discussed.