Women CEOs Are More Likely Than Male Counterparts to Prioritize Relational Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business strategy in which a company considers its impact on society beyond its primary goal of making a profit. According to a new study published in the European Journal of Marketing, women CEOs are more likely than their male counterparts to prioritize certain types of CSR in their operations.

The authors examined data on over 2,700 large United States-based companies to determine if there was a relationship between CEO gender and CSR output. They labeled a company’s CSR efforts as either relational (initiatives directly impacting people, such as their employees, the community, and diversity efforts) or rational (initiatives indirectly impacting people, such as the environment and sustainability).

After reviewing more than 19,000 annual company reports, the authors found that women CEOs were significantly more likely to prioritize relational CSR. They did not find any significant gender differences in CEOs’ rational CSR priorities. However, gender differences did emerge when the authors examined the CEOs’ tenure, board involvement, and pay. The gender gap in a company’s CSR output was more pronounced when its CEO had a longer tenure and when the CEO also served as board chair. In contrast, the CSR gender gap shrank when there was a large pay disparity between the CEO and the company’s senior leadership team.

The research team included scholars from Kennesaw State University in Georgia, the University of Mississippi, and Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.