Do female managers perform better? Evidence from Italian manufacturing firms

The aim of the paper is to test whether the presence of females on boards of directors influences firms productivity. The analysis is conducted on a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms extracted from the Analisi Informatizzata delle Aziende database for the years 2004 and 2012. Our results show that firm productivity is positively influenced by the presence of women managers in both post and pre‐crisis periods, revealing that peculiar features of female human capital matter in running manufacturing firms. The productivity differential is found to depend on geographical localization. Female managed firms located in the North–West regions significantly increase the positive firm productivity differential of the geographical area, while firms located in the South and Islands reduce the firm differential productivity gap registered by the area. Further investigation shows that female and mixed managed firms result to be more productive than male only managed firms. In the light of our findings we discuss the importance of policies that provide incentives for female inclusion in leading position of the firms.