Journal Article

Does female representation in top management improve firm performance? A panel data investigation

Dezsö, Cristian L., Ross, David Gaddis

2012

Overview

We argue that female representation in top management brings informational and social diversity benefits to the top management team, enriches the behaviors exhibited by managers throughout the firm, and motivates women in middle management. The result should be improved managerial task performance and thus better firm performance. We test our theory using 15 years of panel data on the top management teams of the S&P 1,500 firms. We find that female representation in top management improves firm performance but only to the extent that a firm's strategy is focused on innovation, in which context the informational and social benefits of gender diversity and the behaviors associated with women in management are likely to be especially important for managerial task performance.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,John Wiley & Sons,Wiley,Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subject: Business innovation / Business management / Business structures / Corporate strategies / diversity / Female employees / Females / Financial management / firm performance / gender / innovation / Innovations / Innovationsmanagement / Management / Management principles / Management teams / Manager behavior / Managers / Men / Middle management / Motivation / Multiculturalism & pluralism / Office management / Organizational behavior / Organizational effectiveness / Organizational performance / Panel / Panel data / Representation / Representative agent / Strategic management / Studies / Task performance / Top management / top management teams / Unternehmenserfolg / USA / Weibliche Führungskräfte / Wirkungsanalyse / Women / Workplace diversity