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Women at Multiple Levels of Strategic Leadership: Evidence of Gender Spillovers

Saneesh Edacherian,Amit Karna,Klaus Uhlenbruck,Sunil Sharma

Published 2024 in Corporate Governance: An International Review

ABSTRACT

Empirical.We examine how the combined presence of women in multiple levels of strategic leadership, including gender‐diverse boards, affects firm accounting performance.Our meta‐analysis of 273 effect sizes across various hypotheses expands research on women in upper echelons by showing that gender‐diverse boards are positively related to gender spillovers, that is, the appointment of female executives. Most importantly, our work demonstrates that gender spillovers mediate the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance, indicating there are joint effects of women leaders when serving at various levels of the organization simultaneously. We also find that the size of gender‐diverse boards negatively affects gender spillovers to the level of executives.Our research highlights interdependencies between gender diversity at different organizational levels and the distinct contribution of women directors. We draw attention to the role of gender spillovers as a mechanism that helps explain how the appointment of women directors benefits firm performance. Our findings broadly contribute to upper echelons theory.This study emphasizes that increasing the representation of women on boards can advance the cause of women at other levels of strategic leadership. Furthermore, if women are in multiple levels of strategic leadership at the same time, this can lead to improved firm performance.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2024

  • Venue

    Corporate Governance: An International Review

  • Publication date

    2024-04-10

  • Fields of study

    Not labeled

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1111/corg.12584
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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