Symbolic Management and the Glass Cliff: Evidence from the Boardroom Careers of Female and Male Directors
研究发现英国公司女性董事的任期比男性短，尤其在任职满9年失去独立董事身份后，女性被解雇的风险显著增加，而男性则无此现象，表明女性董事可能被用于公司治理的象征性管理。
Abstract This paper uses archival board data to demonstrate that women who take positions as directors of UK companies have shorter tenures than their male counterparts. The authors show that female directors face a much higher risk of dismissal as they approach nine years of service on the board, when their long service deprives them of the all‐important classification as ‘independent’. At this point, their position on the board becomes precarious. Male directors do not suffer the same increase in boardroom exit. This gender‐specific difference is clearly shown to be linked to the independence status. It is argued that these observations are consistent with the notion that female directors are being used in the symbolic management of corporate governance and that, at nine years, when the cloak of independence disappears, women directors are then exposed to the biases that arise from role congruity issues.