Social trust and female board representation: evidence from China

The underrepresentation of females on corporate boards is an important ethical issue that raises serious concerns about gender equality in senior management teams. Relying on a large sample of public firms from the Chinese market, we examine how social trust affects female board representation. We f...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Qiu, Baoyin (Author) ; Ren, Haohan (Author) ; Zuo, Jingjing (Author) ; Cheng, Bo (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2023
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2023, Volume: 188, Issue: 1, Pages: 187-204
Further subjects:B social trust
B Female Directors
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B ESG ratings
B gender discrimination
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The underrepresentation of females on corporate boards is an important ethical issue that raises serious concerns about gender equality in senior management teams. Relying on a large sample of public firms from the Chinese market, we examine how social trust affects female board representation. We find that female board representation has a positive and significant relation with social trust. The effect is more pronounced in regions with a higher male-to-female sex ratio at birth, lower levels of education, lower GDP per capita, and in nonfamily firms. We also find that higher social trust is more likely to increase the number of non-independent female directors rather than independent ones. Further analyses show that increased female board representation is an important channel through which social trust improves corporate ESG ratings. Overall, our study suggests that social trust contributes positively to gender diversity in corporate management.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05298-5