Friend or Foe? CEO gender, political ideology, and gender-pay disparities in executive compensation

TY - JOUR

T1 - Friend or Foe? CEO gender, political ideology, and gender-pay disparities in executive compensation

AU - Kalogeraki, Olga

AU - Georgakakis, Dimitrios

N1 - © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. Funding Information: We thank Bert Cannella, Peder Greve, Martin Hilb, and Winfried Ruigrok for their help, feedback and discussions at earlier stages of this paper's development.

PY - 2022/6/3

Y1 - 2022/6/3

N2 - Do female CEOs reduce gender-pay disparities in top management teams (TMTs)? Some scholars draw on social identity theory to argue that, as individuals tend to identify with and support their in-groups, appointing a female corporate leader (i.e., CEO) will mitigate the gender-pay gap among executives. Yet, others draw on the queen-bee syndrome to postulate that some female CEOs may rather strengthen gender-pay disparities in upper echelons – by favoring out-groups (male) more than their in-groups (female). We bring together these opposing theoretical arguments to develop a ‘beyond CEO gender’ perspective, arguing that the effects of CEO gender on TMT gender-pay disparities should be considered in conjunction with the corporate leaders' values – as reflected by their political ideology. Our research demonstrates that conservative-female CEOs compensate female (versus male) executives lower compared to all other CEO gender-ideology categories (i.e., female-liberal CEOs, male-liberal CEOs, and male-conservative CEOs). Overall, our work contributes to theory on the CEO-TMT interface by highlighting the role of the CEO as the ‘architect’ of executive remuneration.

AB - Do female CEOs reduce gender-pay disparities in top management teams (TMTs)? Some scholars draw on social identity theory to argue that, as individuals tend to identify with and support their in-groups, appointing a female corporate leader (i.e., CEO) will mitigate the gender-pay gap among executives. Yet, others draw on the queen-bee syndrome to postulate that some female CEOs may rather strengthen gender-pay disparities in upper echelons – by favoring out-groups (male) more than their in-groups (female). We bring together these opposing theoretical arguments to develop a ‘beyond CEO gender’ perspective, arguing that the effects of CEO gender on TMT gender-pay disparities should be considered in conjunction with the corporate leaders' values – as reflected by their political ideology. Our research demonstrates that conservative-female CEOs compensate female (versus male) executives lower compared to all other CEO gender-ideology categories (i.e., female-liberal CEOs, male-liberal CEOs, and male-conservative CEOs). Overall, our work contributes to theory on the CEO-TMT interface by highlighting the role of the CEO as the ‘architect’ of executive remuneration.

KW - CEO-TMT interface

KW - Executive compensation

KW - Queen-bee syndrome

KW - Social identity theory

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110311422&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.lrp.2021.102126

DO - 10.1016/j.lrp.2021.102126

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85110311422

SN - 0024-6301

VL - 55

JO - Long Range Planning

JF - Long Range Planning

M1 - 102126

ER -