Not just a woman or a man: Influence of team faultlines on board gender diversity- firm performance

Abstract

Evidence on whether increasing female representation on boards improves firm performance is equivocal. To reconcile these disparate findings, I explore the role of team level contextual conditions in shaping board gender diversity--firm performance relationship. Specifically, relying on the concept of team level faultlines, I argue that strength of alignment of gender with bio-demographic and task-related characteristics is likely to moderate board gender diversity-firm performance relationship. I test my theoretical model using 17 years of unbalanced panel data on boards of S&P 500 firms. I find that board gender diversity influences firm performance positively. I also find that faultline strength based on gender and age negatively moderates this main effect relationship. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.