Gender Interactions Within the Family Firm

Abstract

We analyze whether gender interactions at the top of the corporate hierarchy affect corporate performance. Using a comprehensive data set of family-controlled firms in Italy, we find that female directors significantly improve the operating profitability of female-led companies. To mitigate endogeneity concerns, we assess executive transitions using a triple-difference approach complemented by propensity score matching and instrumental variables. Finally, we show that the positive effect of female interactions on profitability is reduced when the firm is located in geographic areas characterized by gender prejudices and when the firm is large. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, finance.

The Impact of CEO Succession with Gender Change on Firm Performance and Successor Early Departure: Evidence from China’s Publicly Listed Companies in 1997–2010

“…Consistent with Amore et al (2014), which found that the proportion of female directors on the board could improve the performance of a female CEO, we found that the presence of other female leaders on a firm's board and/or top management team can weaken the in Tables 3 and 4 with data on board chair successions and found that board chair succession with gender change has no effect on post-succession performance or the successor board chair's early routine or non-routine departure. Our findings highlight the importance of the presence of other female leaders in the firm's upper echelon as well as the inside origin of the successor.…”

“…In a context of family-controlled firms in Italy, Amore et al (2014) provided some empirical evidence to the benefits of "female interactions" at the top. 3 The authors found that the profitability of firms led by female CEOs was significantly improved with an increasing number of female directors on the board.…”

“…Amore et al (2014, footnote 7 on page 1,087) found that female CEOs' profitability improved linearly with the proportion of female directors. Amore et al (2014, footnote 7 on page 1,087) found that female CEOs' profitability improved linearly with the proportion of female directors.…”

The Effect of Female Leadership on Establishment and Employee Outcomes: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

“…Smith et al (2006), using both OLS and IV methods (where the fraction of women in top management is instrumented by the education of male CEO's wives), find that the proportion of women in top management jobs tend to be positively associated with firm performance in a panel of large Danish firms, but the association becomes largely insignificant once one controls for firm fixed effects. Amore et al (2013) find that only the joint presence of women in CEO and governance positions significantly improves firm performance in a sample of family-controlled firms in Italy. 5 Using a subset of the data that we use in this paper, Laible (2013) finds a slight negative correlation between the proportion of women in top management and establishment performance.…”

“…Alternatively, female executives, being more attuned to the needs of female employees, may be more likely to promote female friendly policies, such as provision of child care or specific mentoring programs. 4 The goal of this paper is to explicitly investigate how the gender composition of the top layer of management affects firm and employee outcomes. To this purpose, we use a large linked employer-employee data set on German establishments between 1993 and 2012.…”