女性参与高管团队对企业绩效的影响:基于中国民营企业的实证研究

Female Participation in TMT and Firm Performance:Evidence from Chinese Private Enterprises

受传统观念的影响,女性在中国社会的地位长期受到轻视,其在商业中的作用更是一直为人们所忽视。然而,随着中国民营经济的蓬勃发展,不少女企业家取得了令人瞩目的商业成就,女性开始崛起为企业界的一股新的力量。那么,女性参与高管团队是否能为企业增加价值呢?性别差异是否能够成为一种优势而使女性管理者更好地进行决策和管理企业呢?本研究以关于企业高管团队的文献为基础,以中国民营企业为研究对象,采用2008年民营上市公司数据,探讨女性参与高管团队与企业绩效之间的关系,并且将这一关系置于女性高管的人力资本和社会资本两个调节变量的背景下,进一步探究影响女性参与高管团队与企业绩效之间关系的原因。研究结果表明,女性在高管团队中的参与能够提升企业绩效,这种对绩效的提升随着女性高管的人力资本和社会资本的提高而增强。本研究从高管团队成员性别差异的角度丰富了现有的高管团队理论体系,并且为中国处于蓬勃发展中的民营企业的成长提供了有意义的实践指导。

This study examines the relationship between female participation in top management teams and firm performance in the emerging Chinese private economy.Drawing upon the literature on upper echelons and manager effects, the study develops and tests a set of hypotheses using the data of listed private-owned companies in China＇s security exchanges in 2008, with critical information on financial performance, corporate governance structure, and top management team composition of the companies.The direct link between female participation in top management team and firm performance is examined in the context of human capital, as measured by the educational background, and social capital, as measured by the political connections, of the female top executives, to investigate the origins and the contingencies of the linkage.The empirical analysis supports a positive relationship between the degree of female participation and firm performance.The positive relationship was found further strengthened by female top executives＇ human capital and social capital, consistent with the hypotheses.The present study gains consistent results with research done in the Western context, which may stem from the fact that Chinese private enterprises are less influenced by the direct governmental control and more profit-driven than state-owned companies.The results of this study provide insightful practical implications to the private enterprises in the Chinese emerging market.First of all, private firms should fully recognize the importance of identifying, attracting, and developing female managerial talents, who can help them gaining competitive advantage against firms without female participation in senior manage-ment.Secondly, besides business common sense and experience, female executives of private enterprises in the new era should be people with better systematic education.Higher education background can significantly improve their performance as a decision maker and top executive.Thirdly, in the present Chinese market environment, since the so-called market economy is still significantly influenced by politics, building political ties is crucial.Given the low average ratio of female managers with social capital, recruiting female managerial talents with social resources should be put on private companies＇ strategic agenda.