A Contingency View of the Relationship between Female Representation in TMTs and Firm Performance

In a setting with different East Asian transaction governance structures, we conduct two empirical studies on the relationship between female representation in top management teams (TMTs) and firm performance, and obtain some surprising empirical evidence. Study 1 is case-based, which suggests that female representation in TMTs may have a much greater influence on firm performance under a bureaucratic governance structure than it does under other forms of governance structure. To study this issue further, we conduct Study 2, with a contingency perspective and a data set that covers all publicly listed firms in China’s stock exchanges from 1999- 2015. Our data analysis shows that, among the listed firms that inherited a bureaucracy structure from the former state-owned enterprises, female TMT representation has a significantly positive effect on firm performance. Moreover, several characteristics associated with corporate governance, such as board independence, financial report transparency and board chairperson/CEO duality, also have significant moderating effects in this sample. The same effects, however, are largely unobservable among the listed firms with other forms of governance structure, such as a clan or fief one. We conclude with a discussion of the important implications of these findings.