 Cross-border M&A, gender-equal culture, and board gender diversityYangming Bao and Jie Li Journal of Corporate Finance, 2024, vol. 84, issue C Abstract: This paper investigates how acquirers' board gender structures respond to the target country's gender-equal culture following cross-border M&A deals. Using a sample of Chinese public firms that conducted cross-border M&As from 2008 to 2019, we find that acquirers tend to adjust the proportion of female directors to better align with the target country's gender-equal culture. We address the potential selection concerns by adopting the Heckman two-step method and show the results are robust. Further analyses show that acquirers are more likely to adjust their board gender structures when the deal size and the target size are larger, and when the communication and legitimacy barriers are greater, suggesting the adjustment is a strategic move. Moreover, we find evidence of synergy gains following board adjustments in terms of enhanced firm performance and increased innovations. Keywords: Cross-border M&A; Gender equality; Board gender diversity; Culture differences (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:84:y:2024:i:c:s0929119923001761 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2023.102527 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Corporate Finance is currently edited by A. Poulsen and J. Netter More articles in Journal of Corporate Finance from Elsevier |
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