Responding to the latest demand for strategic human resource management research, the paper investigates the links between the strategic choice of sustainable competitive advantage for firms and the executive-employee compensation gap (EECG), and the moderating role of marketization degree in influencing such links between the two. A balanced panel of data consisting of 3900 annual observations of companies listed in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share manufacturing industries from 2008 to 2017 is used as the research sample, using SPSS 23.0 and STATA 16.0 software. The paper makes empirical analysis using several methods, including factor analysis, correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis based on OLS/2SLS, and fixed effect regression analysis, respectively. The empirical results confirmed that the differentiation strategy had a positive effect on EECG, and the marketization degree would strengthen the positive effect; and that the cost leadership strategy had an inhibitory effect on EECG, and the marketization degree would strengthen the inhibitory effect. Further exploration has found that both differentiation and cost leadership strategies can effectively improve firm performance and enhance sustainable competitive advantage when matched with a moderately higher EECG; the level of participation of female executives in corporate governance would harm the performance consequences of differentiation strategy, while improving the performance consequences of cost leadership strategy.

Based on managerial power theory, feminist care ethics theory and critical mass theory, the paper explores how CEO duality changes the relationship between female directors and managerial perks. This paper uses SPSS and STATA statistical software to conduct an empirical study using a data sample of 4126 listed AI (artificial intelligence) companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2020. The results reveal that female directors can significantly promote managerial perks in the case of CEO duality and achieve effective correction of managerial perks when the CEO does not also serve as chairman. CEO duality is a key boundary condition for female directors to effectively monitor managerial perks. The study explores whether female directors can be effective in curbing managerial perks, given that the role played by female directors is related to environmental conditions. We expect that CEO duality, a key situational variable representing the level of CEO power, could significantly change female directors' attitudes toward management perks.