IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ove/journl/aid20848.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do female CEOs handle crisis better? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • John Thornton
  • Chrysovalantis Vasilakis

Abstract

We examine whether firm performance in response to the shock of the COVID pandemic differed depending upon whether the CEO was female or male. We find that though female CEOs do not consistently demonstrate better management across all periods, following the shock, firms run by female CEOs were more profitable, more highly valued and more risk averse than firms run by male CEOs.

Suggested Citation

  • John Thornton & Chrysovalantis Vasilakis, 2024. "Do female CEOs handle crisis better? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 158-171.
  • Handle: RePEc:ove:journl:aid:20848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/EBL/article/view/20848
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin Campbell & Antonio Mínguez-Vera, 2008. "Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firm Financial Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 435-451, December.
    2. Sanyun Zeng & Lihong Wang, 2015. "CEO gender and corporate cash holdings. Are female CEOs more conservative?," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 449-474, December.
    3. James G. Combs & David J. Ketchen & Alexa A. Perryman & Maura S. Donahue, 2007. "The Moderating Effect of CEO Power on the Board Composition–Firm Performance Relationship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(8), pages 1299-1323, December.
    4. Jean M. Bartunek & Kate Walsh & Catherine A. Lacey, 2000. "Dynamics and Dilemmas of Women Leading Women," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(6), pages 589-610, December.
    5. Hu, Shiwei & Zhang, Yuyao, 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic and firm performance: Cross-country evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 365-372.
    6. Claude Francoeur & Réal Labelle & Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné, 2008. "Gender Diversity in Corporate Governance and Top Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(1), pages 83-95, August.
    7. Supriya Garikipati & Uma Kambhampati, 2021. "Leading the Fight Against the Pandemic: Does Gender Really Matter?," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1-2), pages 401-418, April.
    8. Adams, Renée B. & Ferreira, Daniel, 2009. "Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 291-309, November.
    9. Jiraporn, Pornsit & Jumreornvong, Seksak & Jiraporn, Napatsorn & Singh, Simran, 2016. "How do independent directors view powerful CEOs? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 268-274.
    10. Ajay Palvia & Emilia Vähämaa & Sami Vähämaa, 2015. "Are Female CEOs and Chairwomen More Conservative and Risk Averse? Evidence from the Banking Industry During the Financial Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 577-594, October.
    11. El-Khatib, Rwan & Fogel, Kathy & Jandik, Tomas, 2015. "CEO network centrality and merger performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 349-382.
    12. Huang, Jiekun & Kisgen, Darren J., 2013. "Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 822-839.
    13. Faccio, Mara & Marchica, Maria-Teresa & Mura, Roberto, 2016. "CEO gender, corporate risk-taking, and the efficiency of capital allocation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 193-209.
    14. Kathy Fogel & Liping Ma & Randall Morck, 2021. "Powerful independent directors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 935-983, December.
    15. Simon Ho & Annie Li & Kinsun Tam & Feida Zhang, 2015. "CEO Gender, Ethical Leadership, and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 351-370, March.
    16. Amy Sommer & Christine Pearson, 2011. "Infusing creativity into crisis management: An essential approach today," Post-Print hal-00575635, HAL.
    17. Liu, Yu & Wei, Zuobao & Xie, Feixue, 2014. "Do women directors improve firm performance in China?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 169-184.
    18. Khan, Walayet A. & Vieito, João Paulo, 2013. "Ceo gender and firm performance," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 55-66.
    19. Sharon Belenzon & Anastasiya Shamshur & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2019. "CEO's age and the performance of closely held firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(6), pages 917-944, June.
    20. Gopal Krishnan & Linda Parsons, 2008. "Getting to the Bottom Line: An Exploration of Gender and Earnings Quality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(1), pages 65-76, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahmed Bouteska & Mehdi Mili, 2022. "Women’s leadership impact on risks and financial performance in banking: evidence from the Southeast Asian Countries," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 26(4), pages 1213-1244, December.
    2. Alaa Mansour Zalata & Collins Ntim & Ahmed Aboud & Ernest Gyapong, 2019. "Female CEOs and Core Earnings Quality: New Evidence on the Ethics Versus Risk-Aversion Puzzle," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 515-534, December.
    3. Lai Van Vo & Hazel Thu‐Hien Nguyen & Huong Thi Thu Le, 2021. "Do female CEOs make a difference in firm operations? Evidence from Vietnam," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1489-1516, April.
    4. Irfan Ullah & Muhammad Ansar Majeed & Hong-Xing Fang & Muhammad Arif Khan, 2020. "Female CEOs and investment efficiency: evidence from an emerging economy," Pacific Accounting Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(4), pages 443-474, November.
    5. Guanping Zhou, 2019. "Financial distress prevention in China: Does gender of board of directors matter?," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(6), pages 1-8.
    6. Sungchang Kang & Jeongseok Bang & Doojin Ryu, 2024. "Female CEOs’ risk management and earnings performance during the financial crisis," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 110-138, February.
    7. Paul B. McGuinness & João Paulo Vieito & Mingzhu Wang, 2020. "Proactive government intervention, board gender balance, and stakeholder engagement in China and Europe," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 719-762, September.
    8. Baselga-Pascual, Laura & Vähämaa, Emilia, 2021. "Female leadership and bank performance in Latin America," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    9. Cardillo, Giovanni & Onali, Enrico & Torluccio, Giuseppe, 2021. "Does gender diversity on banks' boards matter? Evidence from public bailouts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Liu, Chelsea, 2021. "CEO gender and employee relations: Evidence from labor lawsuits," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. Gao, Kaijuan & Wang, Manya & Liu, Jin, 2024. "Board chair gender, glass ceiling, and IPO underpricing: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1152-1171.
    12. Fernando, Guy D. & Schneible, Richard A. & Zhang, Wei, 2024. "Institutional ownership and women in the top management team," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    13. Paul McGuinness & Kevin Lam & João Vieito, 2015. "Gender and other major board characteristics in China: Explaining corporate dividend policy and governance," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 989-1038, December.
    14. Kara, Alper & Nanteza, Aziidah & Ozkan, Aydin & Yildiz, Yilmaz, 2022. "Board gender diversity and responsible banking during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Xu, Xixiong & Li, Wanli & Li, Yaoqin & Liu, Xing, 2019. "Female CFOs and corporate cash holdings: Precautionary motive or agency motive?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 434-454.
    16. Sultan Sikandar Mirza & Muhammad Ansar Majeed & Tanveer Ahsan, 2020. "Board gender diversity, competitive pressure and investment efficiency in Chinese private firms," Post-Print hal-02956320, HAL.
    17. Jarkko Peltomäki & Jukka Sihvonen & Steve Swidler & Sami Vähämaa, 2021. "Age, gender, and risk‐taking: Evidence from the S&P 1500 executives and market‐based measures of firm risk," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1988-2014, October.
    18. Kubo, Katsuyuki & Nguyen, Thanh Thi Phuong, 2021. "Female CEOs on Japanese corporate boards and firm performance," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Garanina, Tatiana & Muravyev, Alexander, 2021. "The gender composition of corporate boards and firm performance: Evidence from Russia," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    20. Belaounia, Samia & Tao, Ran & Zhao, Hong, 2020. "Gender equality's impact on female directors’ efficacy: A multi-country study," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ove:journl:aid:20848. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francisco J. Delgado (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deovies.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.