Transformations  in
Business & Economics

FEMALE EXECUTIVES AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PERFORMANCE: A DUAL PERSPECTIVE OF DIFFERENCES IN INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND HETEROGENEITY OF FOREIGN EXPERIENCE
Jintao Lu, Licheng Ren, Jiayuan Qiao, Wenfang Lin, Yifan He

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the value of female executives in the promotion of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy has attracted wide attention from academia and industrial circles. Existing practical cases and theoretical studies have shown that female executives play an important role in promoting CSR performance, but few have explored the micro-impact mechanism of female executives on CSR performance. In order to address this problem, from the perspective of institutional environment and executives' foreign experience, the contingency effect of differences in institutional environment and heterogeneity of foreign experience in the relationship between female executives and CSR performance was explored based on the multiple regression model by employing the CSR data (2010-2017) of A-share listed companies in China released by Hexun company. Results demonstrate that, in the Chinese context, with the gradual increase of the proportion of female executives in the executive team, U-shaped relationship between female executives and CSR performance exists, in which the CSR performance first decreases, then increases again. Female executives with foreign experience play an important role in corporate governance which can greatly improve CSR performance. In addition, a healthy institutional environment can effectively promote female executives with foreign experience into actively participating in CSR activities. Conclusions obtained in this study provide a theoretical reference for the policy making of improving the institutional environment and the implementation of the decision-making of introducing high-level overseas talents for firms, which are also of great significance for reversing gender discrimination in firm employment.

KEYWORDS:  female executives, corporate social responsibility, foreign experience, institutional environment.

JEL classification:  M12, M14.