An institutional approach to the SHE’-E-O plight : evidence from organizational legitimacy and SHE’-E-O dismissal

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how regulatory legitimacy and moral legitimacy influence biased performance evaluations on female chief executive officers’ (CEOs) dismissal. Design/methodology/approach: The final sample contains 10,780 firm-year observations from 2004 to 2013. Findings: This paper finds that the negative relationship between firm performance and CEO dismissal is weakened when the firm has a female CEO. In addition, the regulatory legitimacy pressure and moral legitimacy pressure can disrupt the biased performance evaluations in the board. Originality/value: This study enriches female leadership literature regarding gender stereotype issues by incorporating institutional approach and organizational legitimacy literature. By focusing on regulatory legitimacy and moral legitimacy, this work also helps to further understand gender-related organizational behaviors and outcomes.