Help or hindrance? The impact of female executives on corporate ESG performance in China

The relationship between the personal characteristics of senior management team members and the sustainable development of the enterprise has received much attention. This study used data on A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2022 to examine the effect of female executives on enterprise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and tested the moderating role of ownership concentration and media exposure. Empirical testing was conducted on 20,188 annual observation samples using regression analysis. The empirical results demonstrate that female executives significantly improve corporate ESG performance, especially social responsibility performance. The study also revealed that ownership concentration plays an internal moderating role on the connection between female executives and corporate ESG performance, while media exposure plays an external moderating role. The conclusions remain the same after several robustness tests, including a lag test, substitution variable estimation, and propensity score matching. An economic consequence check and heterogeneity test were also conducted. This study's findings enrich the research on ESG influencing factors and offers empirical support for the value of female participation in corporate governance.