Why Do Companies Choose Female CEOs?

Abstract

For the career development of chief executive officers (CEOs), the existing literature lacks research from the perspectives of gender and the environment. Starting with the perspective of the environment, and through the adoption of the World Bank Survey Data on Chinese Enterprises and China's Comprehensive Social Survey (CGSS), this paper addresses the question: "Why do companies choose female CEOs?" The analysis examines 15 aspects, including enterprise scale, age, industry, owner, product market, market environment, city level, etc. The research findings are as follows. (1) The corporate environment has an impact on CEO gender, and there are differences in its nature and the degree of impact. Enterprise size, state-owned shareholding, radiation effect, market environment, and gender culture have a significant negative impact on female CEOs, while product features, industry characteristics, and female owners have a significantly positive impact on female CEOs. (2) In terms of the impact mechanism, the impact of the meso-environment on female CEOs is significantly adjusted by the macro-environment. This paper extends the existing theory from the perspectives of gender and the environment. Relevant policy recommendations are proposed to provide a theoretical basis for the government to promote women's employment policies and provide effective suggestions for promoting women's career development.Sustainability 2019, 11, 4070 2 of 36 a few women have made their way to CEO, breaking through the glass ceiling. Therefore, the few women who break through the glass ceiling and become CEOs are more worthy of our research.So, from what perspective should we look at and understand the unusual behavior of companies employing female CEOs? Theoretically, the drawback of the existing theories consists of the ignorance of the impact of the company's environment. The company's workplace revolves around men, and as a result, women have to learn through socialization and adapt to the environment to meet the demand of enterprise development. Therefore, the environment is the key to understanding companies recruiting female CEOs and breaking through the existing theories. In summary, we should study the gender of CEOs from the perspective of corporate environment, namely: how does the environment affect the gender of CEOs? The answer to this question will help us better understand and evaluate female CEOs and promote sustainable enterprise development.In view of the factors affecting CEO genders, scholars have carried out research regarding women's own features [1], company characteristics [2], industry environment [3], cultural differences [4], and other different perspectives, and have drawn many useful conclusions. These studies have both strengths and shortcomings. First of all, there is a hypothesis behind previous studies that males have stronger management ability than their female counterparts. However, gender is a kind of social construction, and gender culture has a profound impact on the viewpoints toward males and female...

Female Executives in the Service Sector: The Case of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Spain

“…Our results also highlight that SMEs that have grown more than their competitors in recent years and have formulated strategies of growth intensifying the size of their current business are less likely to have female CEOs. These results are in line with those obtained by Han et al [1], reflecting the influence of the firm characteristic on the gender of CEOs.…”

“…On the other hand, the categorical variable coding of D14(1), company plans to expand its activity in the coming years by expanding the geographical coverage, indicates that when the company plans to spread out its activity in the coming years expanding its geographic coverage, the probability that in the future the CEO being a woman is 4.37 times high than the probability of being a man. Furthermore, the item D4 (1) suggests that when the firm applied any measure of reconciliation of work and family life, the likelihood that CEO being a woman in 2013 is 6.88 times greater than whether the company did not implement reconciliation measures.…”

“…The sign of the predictor D4 (1) indicates that firms that have adopted measures to reconcile work and family life are 15.76 times more likely to be managed by women in the future than those led by men.…”

“…Based on these results, it can be concluded that the probability that a CEO is a woman is higher on firms that at the height of the financial crisis affirmed that they applied measures of reconciliation of work and family life, were more innovative than their competitors, and would expand their business in the coming years by expanding the geographical coverage, but they have grown less than the competition in recent years and would not expand the size of their current business on the same products and markets. Han et al [1] find that enterprise size has a significantly negative impact on the presence of female-CEOs.…”

“…Gender diversity is an important force in achieving sustainable development. Moreover, sustainable development must include the promotion of women's empowerment and gender equality [1]. Despite the increasing attention that corporate governance diversity has received in recent years, the majority of studies address managing to grow at successful organizations [2,3].…”