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This article explores how the diversity of board resources and the number of women on boards affect firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings, and how, in turn, CSR influences corporate reputation. In addition, this article examines whether CSR ratings mediate the relationships among board resource diversity, gender composition, and corporate reputation. The OLS regression results using lagged data for independent and control variables were statistically significant for the gender composition hypotheses, but not for the resource diversitybased hypotheses. CSR ratings had a positive impact on reputation and mediated the relationship between the number of women on the board and corporate reputation.

Research summary: We study the association between firms' entrepreneurial outcomes and their gender composition. Though highly topical, there is little solid empirical knowledge of this issue, which calls for an inductive approach. We match a paired-respondent questionnaire survey with population-wide employer-employee data, and find evidence that the presence of female top managers is positively related to entrepreneurial outcomes in established firms. Yet, this relation is conditional on the proportion between male and female top managers. Another finding is that the overall proportion of women in the firm's workforce negatively moderates the relation between female top managers and entrepreneurial outcomes. We discuss various mechanisms that can explain these findings, and argue that they are best understood in terms of the dynamics of social categorization. Managerial summary: We investigate how companies benefit from having more women on the top-management team. We show that beyond a threshold level of female top managers, more women are associated with more entrepreneurial outcomes (more products and services profitably launched). However, this positive effect is weakened in firms that have many women in the workforce. These effects may be explained in terms of the ways employees mentally categorize managers and how this influences their work motivation. We find evidence for such an explanation.

As work organizations become increasingly gender diverse, existing theoretical models have failed to explain why such diversity can have a negative impact on idea generation. Using evidence from two group experiments, this paper tests theory on the effects of imposing a political correctness (PC) norm, one that sets clear expectations for how men and women should interact, on reducing interaction uncertainty and boosting creativity in mixed-sex groups. Our research shows that men and women both experience uncertainty when asked to generate ideas as members of a mixed-sex work group: men because they may fear offending the women in the group and women because they may fear having their ideas devalued or rejected. Most group creativity research begins with the assumption that creativity is unleashed by removing normative constraints, but our results show that the PC norm promotes rather than suppresses the free expression of ideas by reducing the uncertainty experienced by both sexes in mixed-sex work groups and signaling that the group is predictable enough to risk sharing more—and more-novel—ideas. Our results demonstrate that the PC norm, which is often maligned as a threat to free speech, may play an important role in promoting gender parity at work by allowing demographically heterogeneous work groups to more freely exchange creative ideas.

In recent decades, though the number of female entrepreneurs has grown, a gender gap remains. Self-confidence plays a pivotal role in understanding these differences. We examine gender and target margins in a vast dataset spanning Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We use linear and interval regression analysis to estimate the relationship between gender and setting target margins. We find that female-led ventures are nearly five percentage points less likely to establish target margins compared to male-led ventures, even after adjusting for observable factors. Furthermore, ventures founded by women tend to set lower target margins than those with only male founders. These disparities could be attributed to intrinsic gender characteristics, contextual influences, and unique company traits. Given the link between profit margins and self-confidence, these findings suggest that, due to their self-assurance, typically higher, male entrepreneurs often set more ambitious goals, resulting in higher profits. To promote gender equality in entrepreneurship, policymakers, accelerators, and incubators should focus on bolstering the confidence of female entrepreneurs. Plain English Summary Women-led ventures set lower target margins due to lack of external support, perpetuating the Entrepreneurial Gender Gap Cycle. This trend underscores the need for increased investment and confidence-building initiatives to break the cycle. We examine the relationship between the entrepreneur’s gender and the likelihood of setting target margins in a venture using a dataset of companies from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Our empirical results indicate that, on average, ventures led by women are less likely to establish target margins. When they do, they tend to be more conservative, setting lower levels of target margins compared to ventures led by men. This trend is significantly influenced by the additional barriers women face when entering the entrepreneurial sphere, resulting in a decrease in their self-confidence as entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is crucial to address these barriers to ensure equal opportunities. This can be achieved through the design and implementation of initiatives such as incubators, accelerators, and business networks, as well as through the development and implementation of government policies.

We examine the impact of gender on equity crowdfunding outcomes. Analyzing data from a Chinese equity crowdfunding platform, we find no significant funding difference between female-led and male-led entrepreneurial teams. This suggests that equity crowdfunding can potentially democratize entrepreneurial finance for women in the Chinese market. The gender composition within entrepreneurial teams, however, does affect equity crowdfunding outcomes: mixed-gender teams outperform single-gender teams and teams with an unbalanced gender ratio outperform those with a balanced gender ratio. Specifically, male-dominated teams and female-dominated teams achieve the best funding outcomes. This conclusion remains robust across a series of checks. Notably, the funding benefits associated with gender diversity diminish at higher levels of diversity, indicating a nonlinear relationship between team gender diversity and crowdfunding achievement. Plain English Summary Equity crowdfunding has the potential to make entrepreneurial finance more accessible and reduce the gender gap present in traditional financing. This study explores the influence of gender on equity crowdfunding outcomes at both the individual entrepreneur level and the team gender composition level. Using data from a leading equity crowdfunding platform in China, we find that entrepreneurial teams led by women perform on par with those led by men. Additionally, gender diversity within teams positively impacts crowdfunding achievement. In particular, teams with a slight gender skew, where up to 20% of members are either male or female, outperform more gender-balanced teams. These findings suggest that building a gender-diverse team with a slight skew can be a practical and effective strategy for improving equity crowdfunding outcomes.

Positive or negative media coverage may have important consequences for individuals’ lives and ability to succeed. One potential factor that may affect the tone of coverage, in particular for women, is the gender of newsroom managers. Some scholars have suggested that women in key editorial and managerial roles should have a positive effect on the overall coverage of issues in the news, and specifically on the coverage of women. We used fixed effects regression to analyze panel data on the coverage sentiment of 212 U.S. newspapers from various cities and states between 2004 and 2009 to examine the effects of the gendered composition of newsrooms on coverage tone for both men and women. Our results showed that individuals with female names receive more positive coverage than those with male names do in every section of the newspaper. We also found that increases in female representation on newspapers’ editorial boards resulted in coverage for women that is moderately more positive. However, there is no evidence that under female executive editorship coverage sentiment favors women. Our findings are consistent with the work of gender sociologists and media scholars who have highlighted the media’s rigid gender structures and their resistance to change.

This study aimed to determine how gender composition affects the group creative process. Participants were recruited into dyads with different gender compositions (female–male dyad, F–M; female–female, F–F; male–male, and M–M) to solve two problems. One problem demanded creativity alternative use task (AUT) and the other did not object characteristic task. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning was used to record interpersonal neural responses. Results demonstrated no significant difference in creative performance among the three types of dyads. However, the F–F dyad showed higher levels of cooperative behaviour (i.e. the index of convergence) and collective flexibility than the other dyads. Also, in the fNIRS data, the F–F dyad showed higher interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) increments in the right posterior parietal cortex during the AUT than the other dyads, which covaried with their creative performance. These findings indicate that while solving a creativity problem together, females are more likely than males to consider others’ perspectives. This gender difference might be due to the enhanced IBS increment in the right posterior parietal cortex.

Background This study aims to explore the development of job demands, decision authority and social support within and between industries with different gender composition in Sweden between 1991 and 2013. Methods Cross-sectional data from 12 waves of the Swedish Work Environment Surveys (1991 to 2013), comprising in total 109,698 respondents, were used. Industries were classified in 7 categories according to its gender composition and main activity, comprising two female-dominated, three gender-mixed and two male-dominated industries. Proportions of workers reporting high job demands, low decision authority and poor social support between 1991 and 2013 were calculated. Logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate variation across time, using 1991 as the reference category, and between industries, using knowledge intensive services as the reference category. Estimates for high job demands, low decision authority and poor social support were presented as average marginal effects (AMEs). Results The probabilities of reporting low decision authority were higher in education and health and social care during the whole study period, for both genders, compared with the reference category of knowledge intensive services. The probability of having high job demands were higher for men and women in education, and women in health and social care, compared with the reference category. Men in the male dominated industries had increased job demands over time, compared to the beginning of the study period (1991). The probability of reporting poor social support was higher in the later than in the earliest time period for women in the female-dominated industry health and social care as well as in the gender-mixed labour intensive services industry. Conclusions There has been a negative development of job demands and decision authority in the female-dominated industries education and health and social care in Sweden, whereas social support has developed more negatively for women in health and social care and in labour intensive services.

The extent to which, and the reasons why, children help to care for their parents are examined in an extensive range of literature. Although care for parents essentially takes place in parent–child dyads, many of these studies acknowledge that the amount of care a child gives is generally the outcome of collective decisions in multiple-child families. However, to our knowledge, no research in Europe enhances our understanding of how sibling characteristics influence an individual child's care-giving. Using data for 14 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, the present study relates pre-care-giving sibling characteristics to children's subsequent start of giving care. This longitudinal approach allows correction for the endogenous nature of time-changing predictors. The analysis demonstrates that daughters start to care more often when they have brothers instead of sisters. This pattern of gendered intergenerational care particularly applies to southern European countries. We also observe that both pre-care-giving parent–sibling frequency of contact and geographic distances predict children's care-giving transition strongly. Children who are closer to their parents than siblings in terms of contact and proximity have higher odds of care-taking. Finally, being the only child without a job enhances the start of care-giving as well. The results suggest that sibling characteristics are an important factor in explaining intergenerational care differences between children in Europe.

Purpose The stereotypical assumptions of what it means to be hegemonically masculine and to be a leader are aligned in current society, potentially creating role incongruity for anyone who does not fit into this definition. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether masculine and feminine leadership traits of men and women hospitality managers affect employees’ intention to trust leaders and organizational attractiveness. Design/methodology/approach Explanatory mixed methods were used. First, two experiments (Study 1 = woman manager, n = 137; Study 2 = man manager, n = 117) were conducted with current hospitality employees to test the interaction of masculine versus feminine enactment and the leadership gender composition (3%, 23% or 53% women) on organizational attractiveness and intent to trust the leader. Results did not align with the theories; therefore, three focus groups were held with 13 current hospitality employees. Findings Results indicate a shift toward the preference for communal (feminine) characteristics in hospitality leadership with a balance of masculine traits. Research limitations/implications The influence of managers’ gender-related behaviors on trust and organizational attractiveness goes beyond their physical gender traits, indicating that gender plays a more crucial role than previously understood. Originality/value By using role congruity theory and hegemonic masculinity, this study offers a nuanced understanding of masculine and feminine gender enactment and broadens leadership theory by including the perspectives of nonhegemonic men and assertive women.