Abstract
Based on the notion that women cooperate more with women than with men, we investigate whether women managers work more effectively when monitored by women directors. We find that when a firm has women as its top managers, its accounting profitability increases with the proportion of women on the board of directors. However, the improvement in profitability is associated with earnings management. We show that women are likely to be appointed to precarious leadership positions, which puts pressure on them to ameliorate the weak earnings performance. Finally, consistent with the interaction between women resulting in an unfavourable response from investors, we document a negative stock market reaction to the appointment of female top managers in the presence of women on the board.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100936 |
| Journal | British Accounting Review |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 14 Jul 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Jul 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the editors and two anonymous referees for their insightful and constructive comments. For helpful suggestions, we thank discussants and participants at the 2016 FMA annual conference, 2016 FMA European conference, 2016 IFABS Barcelona conference, 2016 BAFA Scottish area group conference, 2017 EFMA annual conference, 2017 Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, 2018 Multinational Finance Society annual conference and 2019 Financial Management & Accounting Research Conference. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
Funding
We thank the editors and two anonymous referees for their insightful and constructive comments. For helpful suggestions, we thank discussants and participants at the 2016 FMA annual conference, 2016 FMA European conference, 2016 IFABS Barcelona conference, 2016 BAFA Scottish area group conference, 2017 EFMA annual conference, 2017 Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, 2018 Multinational Finance Society annual conference and 2019 Financial Management & Accounting Research Conference. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Keywords
- Board of directors
- Female interaction
- Firm performance
- Glass cliff
- Top management
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Accounting