Mind the Gap: A Psychological and Structural Perspective on Activist Shareholders’ Targeting of Women CEOs

An important challenge faced by women CEOs is that their firms tend to receive more shareholder activism than firms with men CEOs. Frequently, this activism represents attempts by shareholders to direct or override the decisions made by the firms’ leaders. The current paper integrates micro and macro perspectives to explore the factors influencing gender differences in shareholder activism. Drawing on social psychology research, we examine gender role expectations and perceived lack of fit as underlying psychological mechanisms, and we use industry gender type (i.e., men- or women-dominated industry) as an important structural factor that shapes the effects of these psychological mechanisms and women CEOs’ propensity to be targeted by shareholder activism. We test the hypotheses using archival data of shareholder activism at S&P 1500 companies. We also use two vignette-based experiments to examine the underlying mechanisms for why CEO gender relates to shareholder activism differently across industries. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.