Gender diversity on corporate boards continues to present a significant challenge, exacerbated by significant external disruptions such as financial crises or the recent COVID-19 pandemic. These exogenous shocks pressure organizations to reconcile diversity imperatives with more immediate concerns arising from the crises at hand. Employing elements from gender role and institutional theories, we argue that major exogenous shocks will negatively affect (i.e., reduce) gender diversity in corporate boards. Moreover, we propose that female CEOs and the strength of institutional mechanisms (i.e., quotas and corporate governance codes) will moderate (i.e., weaken) the negative effect of these shocks on board gender diversity. We examine these hypotheses in the context of the last global financial crisis (GFC), employing a panel of 10,181 unique firms across 21 countries between 2000 and 2015. We apply a two-way fixed effect difference-in-difference research design, complemented by an extensive battery of additional analyses to ensure robustness. Our results confirm a substantial decline in board gender diversity following the GFC. However, we do not find empirical support for female CEOs or institutional mechanisms in mitigating these diversity reductions. Following these findings, we propose several implications for research and policy.

中文翻译：

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当事情变得艰难时：重大危机后董事会性别多元化


公司董事会的性别多样性继续构成重大挑战，金融危机或最近的 COVID-19 大流行等重大外部干扰加剧了这一挑战。这些外来冲击迫使组织协调多样性的必要性与当前危机引起的更紧迫的问题。利用性别角色和制度理论的要素，我们认为重大的外源冲击将对公司董事会的性别多样性产生负面影响（即减少）。此外，我们建议女性首席执行官和体制机制（即配额和公司治理准则）的力量将缓和（即削弱）这些冲击对董事会性别多样性的负面影响。我们在上次全球金融危机 (GFC) 的背景下检验了这些假设，在 2000 年至 2015 年间雇用了来自 21 个国家的 10,181 家独特公司组成的小组。我们采用双向固定效应双重差分研究设计，并辅以一系列广泛的附加分析，以确保稳健性。我们的结果证实，全球金融危机之后，董事会性别多样性大幅下降。然而，我们没有找到对女性首席执行官或缓解这些多样性减少的制度机制的实证支持。根据这些发现，我们提出了对研究和政策的一些影响。