Women In Top Management And Their Impact On Firm Performance

From the perspective of female executives,this paper examines the impact of female directors,female CEOs and female CFOs on firm performance.Selecting the data of Chinese listed A-shares from 2008 to 2014 as our sample and using TobinQ,ROA and ROS as the measurement of firm performance,the main conclusions are as follows:Generally speaking,the proportion of women in top management team in China has increased year by year,from 10.43% of female directors in 2008 to 13.48% in 2014,from 5.29% of female CEOs to 7.57%,from 4.41% of female CFOs to 8.16%.Although the proportion is rising year by year,the growth rate is relatively slow,which is far from the 40% of female directors in boardroom required by western developed countries.In addition,the study found a significant positive effect between female executives and firm performance which is measurement by ROA and ROS,not including Tobin Q.With higher proportion of female directors,ROA and ROS could be higher;companies with female CEO have better ROA and ROS than companies with male CEO;female CFO has no significant effect on firm performance.The study also found that female independent directors have no significant positive relationship with firm performance,and only female executive directors have positive effect on ROA and ROS.Besides,when the number of women in the boardroom is more than three,no matter what kind of method is used to measure firm performance,female directors have a positive effect on performance.Finally,based on the analysis of upper echelons theory and so on,we found that female directors and female CFOs can significantly reduce financial risk,while female CEOs do not have correlation with financial risk.The article provides a deep analysis of the relationship between female executives and firm performance,and verifies the risk aversion characteristics of female executives.Not only enriches the research on female senior executives in China,but also provides policy guidance for police maker on the problem of gender quatos which is popular in Western countries.