Research On The Influence Of Female Executives On Corporate Litigation Risk

With the improvement of women’s education level,the number of female managers participating in corporate governance is increasing.Many countries have introduced explicit gender quota systems to promote women’s participation in management.Although China has not yet issued laws or regulations requiring company management to implement a gender quota system,considerable progress has been made in gender diversity in management.Is this phenomenon the company’s response to the call for gender equality,or is it because female executives are of great value to the company’s sustainable development? Academic circles have long paid attention to the important value of female executives in corporate governance.Most of the existing research focuses on the impact of female executives on corporate performance,information disclosure,R&D investment,and cash holding behavior.However,legal litigation is an important part of corporate governance,and the current research on the relationship between female executives and corporate litigation is still relatively limited.With the continuous advancement of my country’s legal system construction and legal education and publicity work,and the economic entities’ emphasis on the law,more and more companies choose to use litigation methods to resolve interest disputes.This makes the normal operation of the company closely related to the level of litigation risk.Against this background,this paper analyzes the impact of female executives on corporate litigation risk.First,sort out the relevant literature and theoretical basis,and theoretically analyze how female executives affect the company’s litigation risk.Then use the data of China’s non-financial listed companies from 2008 to 2020 for empirical analysis,and use the OLS regression model and Logit regression model to test the impact of female executives on the company’s litigation risk,and conduct an impact mechanism test and property rights heterogeneity analysis,Educational background and age adjustment effect analysis and endogeneity test.First,through the above research,this paper finds that when a company has female executives,the number and amount of lawsuits involved in the company will be significantly reduced.This shows that the participation of female executives in corporate governance can reduce the company’s litigation risk.Second,in companies with higher strategic aggressiveness,the impact of female executives on reducing litigation risk is more significant,indicating that strategic aggressiveness is one of the factors that affect female executives’ litigation risk.Third,compared with state-owned listed companies,female executives have a more significant impact on reducing corporate litigation risk in non-state-owned listed companies.Fourth,the average education background and average age of female executives have a positive moderating effect on the impact of female executives on reducing corporate litigation risk.The higher the average education background and the older the average age of female executives,the stronger the inhibitory effect of female executives on corporate litigation risks.Fifth,after propensity score matching processing,it can still be shown that female executives can reduce the company’s litigation risk.This shows that the impact of female executives on corporate litigation risk is not because they choose to work in companies with lower risks,and there is no endogenous problem.After drawing the research conclusion,this paper puts forward the following suggestions.First,female executives have their own unique management styles and advantages,so the government should continue to advocate fair employment and train more female executives.Regulatory agencies can formulate relevant policies to guide listed companies to optimize the governance structure of their management,so as to increase the proportion of women in corporate executives.Second,when the company recruits senior managers,it can give women more opportunities to give full play to the expertise of female executives.At the same time,an equal and inclusive corporate culture and management mechanism can be established to attract more women to participate in company management.