"Gender Asymmetrical effects And Firm Performance, The Moderating Effect Of diversification Strategy"

We study how gender-related asymmetrical effect may influence performance among firms with different levels of diversification strategy. Adopting a resource-based view of the firm, we argue that, with related-product diversification, gender diversity is more likely to generate idiosyncratic synergy. This synergy, in turn, may neutralize asymmetrical effects so that firm-level performance should be less likely to be affected. With empirical data from a financial service industry, we test our hypotheses empirically. The results show that: Gender diversity has a significant effect on firm performance among male-dominated firms and not among female-dominated ones. Then we further show a significantly positive relationship between gender diversity and firm performance with the presence of the diversification strategy, which can be seen as evidence of idiosyncratic synergy from gender diversity. With this idiosyncratic synergy, the negative relationship between asymmetrical effects and firm performance is not significant. Moreover, the two-way interactions between asymmetrical effects and other independent variables, such as the diversification strategy and gender diversity, are not significant either. Finally, there is a significant three-way interaction among asymmetrical effects, gender diversity and business strategy. This three-way interaction suggests that, with gender diversity, asymmetrical effects may only influence firm performance indirectly.