 From Church Leadership to Firm Leadership: Religion of Early State Residents, State Institutions, and Present-Day Corporate Female ExecutivesKunyuan Qiao ()
Strategy Science, 2025, vol. 10, issue 3, 207-225 Abstract: I argue that early residents of a U.S. state have left imprints in the state constitution to reflect their religious preferences. Such imprints help explain the varying constitutions across U.S. states, which in turn affect the present-day female representation in corporate leadership. Analyzing a firm-level data set supplemented by a state-level sample and extensive robustness checks, I find that the prevalence of Protestantism at the time of a U.S. state’s admission to the Union is positively related to female representation in the leadership teams of S&P 1500 firms. One mechanism for the persistence of the Protestant imprinting is state constitutions’ emphasis on equality issues. In addition, the historical Catholic immigration to different states, serving as a counter-imprinting force, has weakened this effect. My study contributes to imprinting theory by considering dynamics and developing a regional-level institutional imprinting perspective. I also contribute to a more nuanced understanding of historical antecedents and contemporary firm consequences of subnational institutions, tracing the persistent heterogeneities among firms to some deep historical roots. Keywords: imprinting; institutions; firm leadership; gender; religion (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:inm:orstsc:v:10:y:2025:i:3:p:207-225 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Strategy Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC. |
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