Top management team gender diversity and firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the link between top management team (TMT) gender diversity and firm risk-taking in hospitality companies. The study also links female leadership to risk-taking. Finally, this study examines the moderating effects of TMT incentive pay and TMT age on the relationship between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an unbalanced data set of 81 hospitality firms and 888 firm-year observations over the period of 1992–2020. The study uses fixed-effects regression estimation for primary analyses and addresses potential endogeneity concerns via two-stage least square regression with firm fixed-effects instrumental variable regression. Risk-taking is measured by total firm risk (i.e. the annualized volatility of daily stock returns). Main results are supported with alternative measures of firm risk and estimation methods.FindingsThe study finds that increasing TMT gender diversity leads to a reduction in firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry. Moreover, the study finds that hospitality firms led by a female CEO experience lower firm risk compared to firms led by a male CEO. Finally, the study finds evidence that the relationship between TMT gender diversity and firm risk is contingent on the level of incentive pay awarded to TMT members and the age of TMT members. Increasing incentive pay and aging executive teams decrease the risk reduction effect of TMT gender diversity.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study recommend that firm risk-taking in the hospitality industry is related to gender diversity in TMTs. Hence, the board of directors should pay attention to gender composition for executive positions for risk management. Moreover, the results also suggest that care should be exercised when using incentive pay to align the interests of managers and shareholders. Finally, the board of directors needs to consider both gender diversity and age of the TMT members for TMT composition to manage executives’ risk-taking behavior.Originality/valueThis study fills a research gap in the hospitality literature by providing empirical evidence for the link between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking. Additionally, the study introduces incentive pay and age of TMT as contingency factors for the link between TMT gender diversity and firm risk-taking.