CEO gender and social versus economic value creation of social enterprises: an attention-based view
ISSN: 1754-2413
Article publication date: 12 July 2023
Issue publication date: 23 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effects of CEO gender on social enterprise (SE) value creation and the moderating effect of selective attention on SEs’ dual goals (i.e. relative attention to social versus economic goals).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed 596 active Taiwanese SEs to rate independent and moderating variables and received 191 responses (109 female and 82 male CEOs). The authors used external SE experts to evaluate each SE’s economic and social value creation, lowering the threat of common method bias and enhancing data quality.
Findings
Social value creation is higher with female chief executive officer (CEOs) (than with male CEOs), whereas economic value creation tends to be lower. But, attentional selection (i.e. changes in attention) to economic goals by female CEOs mitigates the negative relationship between female CEOs and economic value creation.
Practical implications
Gender diversity in the top management team is critical for dual-goal attainment. Decision-makers’ attention focus could vary along with the situation to achieve the desired outcomes. Thus, creating an attention structure under a given situation may help guide the decision-making process toward the desired performance for SEs.
Originality/value
Little research brings the attention-based view to investigate the effects of managerial gender roles on the dual-goal performance (i.e. social versus economic value creation) of SEs and test its contingency, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to do so. This study also adopted a unique research design asking outside SE experts to provide the performance data.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (Grant No. NOST-111-2629-H-110-001-SSS); The authors would like to extend their gratitude to Editor Dr. Adelina Broadbridge and the two anonymous reviewers for their diligent and insightful guidance in developing this article.
Citation
Lin, H.-E., Yu, A., Choi, J., Tsao, C.-W., Stambaugh, J. and Taylor, D.L. (2024), "CEO gender and social versus economic value creation of social enterprises: an attention-based view", Gender in Management, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 87-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-06-2022-0219
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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