Do Women in Top Management Affect Firm Performance? A Panel Study of 2500 Danish Firms

Nina Smith, Valdemar Smith and Mette Verner ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Purpose: This study examines the relationship between management diversity and firm performance in the case of women in top executive jobs and on boards of directors. Corporate governance literature argues that board diversity is potentially positively related to firm performance. This hypothesis is tested in the paper. Methodology: By the use of data for the 2500 largest Danish firms observed during the period 1993–2001 various statistical models for firm performance are specified and estimated. The main focus in the models is the estimated relationship between the proportion of women in top management (CEO’s and on boards of directors) and firm performance. Findings: The results show that the proportion of women in top management jobs tends to have positive effects on firm performance, even after controlling for numerous characteristics of the firm and direction of causality. The results show that the positive effects of women in top management strongly depend on the qualifications of female top managers. Originality: This paper provides solid statistical evidence of the effects of women in top management on firm performance. The use of a large sample and the panel nature of the data set make it possible to properly control for direction of causality and, furthermore, numerous firm and individual information are included to estimate genuine effects of women in top management.

Keywords: Firm performance; female CEOs; management diversity; gender diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G38 J16 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (223)

Published in International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 7.55(2006): pp. 563-599

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/78715/1/MPRA_paper_78715.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do women in top management affect firm performance?A panel study of 2,500 Danish firms (2006)
Working Paper: Do Women in Top Management Affect Firm Performance? A Panel Study of 2500 Danish Firms (2005)
Working Paper: Do Women in Top Management Affect Firm Performance? A Panel Study of 2500 Danish Firms (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:78715

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().