The Impact of the Top Management Team’s Gender Diversity on Target Choice Regarding CSP

Enhancing CSR performance is vital in attempts to gain a competitive edge. As a result of these advantages, firms strive to acquire CSR resources by merging with targets that have a proven track records regarding CSR. Acquiring a high-CSR target offers numerous benefits, including the preservation of stakeholder relationships, the transfer of resources from the target to the acquiring firm, and the enhancement of corporate value. However, there is limited literature investigating the specific types of companies (i.e., in terms of their antecedents and boundary conditions) that adopt this strategy and the potential consequences of such actions. In this paper, we delve into the antecedents of this acquisition strategy. Primarily, we propose that firms with more gender-diverse top management teams (TMTs) are more likely to acquire targets with strong CSR performance. Nonetheless, we also hypothesize that this relationship is influenced by CEO gender and ownership status. Finally, we argue that acquiring high-CSR targets could alleviate stakeholder concerns, leading to reduced shareholder dissent. To test these arguments, we collected data on all acquisition deals involving S&P 500 firms and discovered empirical support for our hypotheses.