Do Female CEOs Promote Behavioral Consistency in Firm’s Nonmarket Strategy: The Moderating Effect of Board Gender Diversity

This study explores whether and under what conditions women CEOs engage in behavioral consistency when promoting CSR practices. Specifically, drawing from the social role and behavioral consistency theories, we argue that women’s CEO presence will positively affect CSR consistency. We use two categories to capture the firm’s consistency in CSR practices: inter-domain and temporal consistency. Inter-domain consistency indicates reliability in a firm’s conduct across its various stakeholder groups. Temporal consistency refers to the consistency of a firm’s behavior toward its stakeholders over time. Using 167 unique S&P 500 firms over the 2005-2013 sample period, we found that women CEOs maintain higher temporal and inter-domain consistency than men. Our results also show that women CEO-led firms with greater gender diversity on their boards exhibit higher temporal and inter-domain consistency levels. Our study advances our understanding of how women CEOs use their situational and positional power to improve such equity and consistency.