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Diverse boards have been seen as providing impetus for initiating change. However, diversity may introduce conflict and impede decision making, which could hinder the ability of the firm to make strategic change, especially in times when firm performance is low. Integrating threat-rigidity theory and team diversity research, we examine how board gender diversity, firm performance, and the power of women directors interact to influence the amount of strategic change. Results support a three-way interaction, indicating that when the board is not experiencing a threat as a result of low firm performance and women directors have greater power, the relationship between board gender diversity and amount of strategic change is the most positive. However, when the board is threatened by low firm performance and women directors have greater power, the relationship between board gender diversity and amount of strategic change is the most negative. Results suggest that diversity is double-edged because it can propel or impede strategic change depending on firm performance and the power of women directors.

The under-representation of women on boards is a heavily discussed topic—not only in Germany. Based on critical mass theory and with the help of a hand-collected panel dataset of 151 listed German firms for the years 2000-2005, we explore whether the link between gender diversity and firm performance follows a U-shape. Controlling for reversed causality, we find evidence for gender diversity to at first negatively affect firm performance and—only after a \"critical mass\" of about 30 % women has been reached—to be associated with higher firm performance than completely male boards. Given our sample firms, the critical mass of 30 % women translates into an absolute number of about three women on the board and hence supports recent studies on a corresponding \"magic number\" of women in the boardroom.

Affirmative action is often criticized for causing reverse discrimination and lowering the qualifications of those hired under the policy. However, the magnitude of such adverse effects depends on whether the best suited candidate is hired absent the policy. Indeed affirmative action may compensate for the distortion discrimination imposes on the selection of candidates. This paper asks whether affirmative action can have a similar corrective impact when qualified individuals fail to apply for a job. We evaluate the effect of introducing a gender quota in an environment where high-performing women fail to enter competitions they can win. We show that guaranteeing women equal representation among winners increases their entry. The response exceeds that predicted by the change in probability of winning and is in part driven by women being more willing to compete against other women. The consequences are substantial as the boost in supply essentially eliminates the anticipated costs of the policy. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.

This study examines whether and how female board directors may affect corporate social performance (CSP) by drawing on social role theory and feminist ethics literature. The empirical analysis, based on a sample of 126 firms drawn from the S&P500 group of companies over a 5-year period, suggests that board gender diversity (BGD) significantly affects CSP. However, this impact depends on the social performance metric under investigation. In particular, more gender diverse boards exert stronger influence on CSP metrics focusing on 'negative' business practices, such as the 'concerns' dimension of the Kinder Lydenberg Domini, Inc. (KLD) ratings. This is because such CSP ratings have the potential to induce higher levels of 'empathic caring', which strongly appeals to female directors. Hence, this study reveals further hidden connections in the BGD—CSP link which have important implications for managers, nongovernmental organisations and socially responsible investors.

We examine whether men and women of the same ability differ in their selection into a competitive environment. Participants in a laboratory experiment solve a real task, first under a noncompetitive piece rate and then a competitive tournament incentive scheme. Although there are no gender differences in performance, men select the tournament twice as much as women when choosing their compensation scheme for the next performance. While 73 percent of the men select the tournament, only 35 percent of the women make this choice. This gender gap in tournament entry is not explained by performance, and factors such as risk and feedback aversion only playa negligible role. Instead, the tournament-entry gap is driven by men being more overconfident and by gender differences in preferences for performing in a competition. The result is that women shy away from competition and men embrace it.

This article examines gender performativity as a strategic mode of agency in Joyce Carol Oates’s Marya: A Life (1986), focusing on the production of female scholarly identity within patriarchal academic institutions. Existing criticism has largely interpreted Marya’s development through psychological trauma, maternal reconciliation, or inner healing, tending to locate agency in psychic resolution rather than in the negotiation of institutional power. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, this study argues that Marya’s agency emerges through calculated gender performances rather than through the attainment of a coherent or authentic identity. Through close textual analysis, the article traces three interconnected stages in Marya’s trajectory. It first examines her adoption of masculinized behaviors as strategies for academic legitimacy, revealing the limits of masculinity when performed by a female body. It then analyzes her tactical switching between masculine assertion and feminine vulnerability in interpersonal and institutional encounters, showing how gender functions as a situational resource. Finally, it conceptualizes Marya’s later position as a feminist intellectual as a form of “meta-performance,” in which scholarly authority and feminist critique coexist within the same institutional framework. By foregrounding the performative construction of scholarly authority, this study reframes Marya: A Life as a critical exploration of how gendered agency is negotiated and rendered intelligible within patriarchal academic culture.

This article examines how heteronormative masculinity is problematized and destabilized in the cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, with particular focus on Uzak and Kış Uykusu. Rather than assuming a generalized “crisis of masculinity,” the study conceptualizes this crisis as a cinematic process produced through emotional withdrawal, spatial isolation, and the erosion of intellectual and moral authority. Drawing on theories of gender performativity and hegemonic masculinity, the article analyzes how silence, duration, bodily stillness, and dialogic confrontation construct male vulnerability and expose the limits of patriarchal masculine performance. By foregrounding formal cinematic strategies rather than thematic description alone, this study argues that Ceylan’s films reconfigure masculinity not simply as a psychological failure but as a fragile social and aesthetic formation. The article contributes to debates on Turkish art cinema by demonstrating how masculinity is reshaped through cinematic form and by situating Ceylan’s work within broader discussions of gender, power, and modernity.

Drawing from the perspectives of transgender individuals, this article offers an empirical investigation of recent critiques of West and Zimmerman's \"doing gender\" theory. This analysis uses 19 in-depth interviews with transpeople about their negotiation and management of gendered interactions at work to explore how their experiences potentially contribute to the doing, undoing, or redoing of gender in the workplace. I find that transpeople face unique challenges in making interactional sense of their sex, gender, and sex category and simultaneously engage in doing, undoing, and redoing gender in the process of managing these challenges. Consequently, I argue that their interactional gender accomplishments are not adequately captured under the rubric of \"doing gender\" and suggest instead that they be understood as \"doing transgender.\" This article outlines the process of and consequences of \"doing transgender\" and its potential implications for the experience of and transformation of gender inequality at work.

This paper reports on a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in business teams on their performance. Teams consisting of undergraduate students in business studies start up a venture as part of their curriculum. We manipulated the gender composition of teams and assigned students randomly to teams, conditional on their gender. We find that teams with an equal gender mix perform better than male-dominated teams in terms of sales and profits. We explore various mechanisms suggested in the literature to explain this positive effect of gender diversity on performance (including complementarities, learning, monitoring, and conflicts) but find no support for them. This paper was accepted by Jesper Sørensen, organizations.

The inconsistent findings of past board diversity research demand a test of competing linear and curvilinear diversity–performance predictions. This research focuses on board age and gender diversity, and presents a positive linear prediction based on resource dependence theory, a negative linear prediction based on social identity theory, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear prediction based on the integration of resource dependence theory with social identity theory. The predictions were tested using archival data on 288 large organizations listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, with a 1-year time lag between diversity (age and gender) and performance (employee productivity and return on assets). The results indicate a positive linear relationship between gender diversity and employee productivity, a negative linear relationship between age diversity and return on assets, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between age diversity and return on assets. The findings provide additional evidence on the business case for board gender diversity and refine the business case for board age diversity.