New research article: Stock market reaction to female CEO appointments: Is the market gendered?
We are happy to share with you our latest research article: Stock market reaction to female CEO appointments: Is the market gendered?
Barriers to female leadership are both formal and informal. Among informal ones, culturally grounded negative stereotypes play an important role in explaining female scarcity in CEO positions. These are also reflected not only in career advancement of women but also in how markets factor in gender-related information. Indeed, studies find that stock markets react negatively to the appointment of female CEOs.
You can download our research article below.
Research subject on female CEO appointments
Stock markets react negatively to the appointment of female CEOs. Recent research has argued that this may reflect the investors’ negative perception about female leadership and media reporting that is biased against women. In this paper, we propose a new explanation based on the hypothesis that the market is ‘gendered’. As female and male market participants may exhibit differences in preferences and in biases towards gender, gender diversity in the financial sector potentially impacts the market outcomes.
Research design based on experimental simulations
To test this hypothesis, we run a simulation-based lab experiment in which female and male participants trade stocks of a company in response to the appointment of its future CEO, who could be either a man or a woman. We find that when a female CEO is appointed, the female participants’ perception is positive (they buy stocks), while the male participants’ perception is negative (they sell stocks). The opposite result holds when a male CEO is appointed. We interpret our findings drawing from homophily, entitativity and expectation theories.
Policy implication about gender
The policy implication of our study is that the gender issue is not only an issue reflected at the corporate level in the need to apppoint more female CEOs but also an issue at the financial industry level related to the need to increase gender diversity by attracting more women in investment occupations; finally it is an issue at the societal level related to the need to change individual and collective stereotypes about female leadership.
Prof. François Longin and Prof. Santacreu-Vasut
ESSEC Business School