Beyond Biology? - The Impact of CEO Agency on Investor Reactions during an IPO

公司高层领导主要由男性担任。男性在高层领导职位中占主导地位的一个原因是男性性别和领导角色的一致性。这种性别角色是关于与女性或男性相关的特征的“共识信念”。男性性别角色与代理行为有关，如支配地位，野心和自信，使他们几乎与我们社会中的传统领导角色一致。相比之下，女性被期望表现出共同的特质，如同情，感情和善良。这些品质与一个好领导者所必须具备的品质形成了鲜明的对比。因此，在企业中，男性领导特权的变异很少。本课题将“恶”视为“善”，直接关注男性领导特权的变异，研究性别对投资者反应的影响。基于代理男性性别角色与领导角色一致性的观点，本文旨在研究首次公开募股（IPO）期间CEO对代理男性性别角色的遵从与投资者反应之间的关系。我们试图检查遵守代理男性性别角色的独立性，无论是在男性或女性CEO。我们认为，投资者会欣赏CEO的男性行为，因此，传统的领导角色。我们将采用混合方法来更好地了解投资者对IPO期间CEO代理行为的反应。在第一步中，我们将使用一个视频分析的CEO在路演活动期间举行的公司的IPO时间来推断CEO的男性性别角色的遵守情况。在此基础上，我们将研究CEO代理对投资者反应的影响。在第二步中，我们将在受控环境中复制视频研究，以了解研究1中发现的效应背后的机制，并调查代理男性性别角色如何与生物性别相互作用。在这个受控的设置，我们将测试是否赞赏CEO代理行为遵循相同的模式为男性和女性。

Leadership at the top of firms is largely performed by men. One reason for this male dominance in top leadership positions has been found in the congruity of male gender and leadership roles. Such gender roles are "consensual beliefs" about traits that are associated with either women or men. Male gender roles are associated with agentic behavior, such as dominance, ambition, and assertiveness, rendering them almost congruent with traditional leadership roles in our society. In contrast, women are expected to show communal traits, such as sympathy, affection, and kindness. These traits stand in sharp contrast to what is deemed necessary for a good leader. Not surprisingly, variations from the male leadership prerogative can seldom be found in the corporate landscape.This project aims to research gender effects on investor reactions by taking the "vice" as a “virtue" and directly focusing on deviations from the male leadership prerogative. Building on the idea of the congruity of agentic male gender roles and leadership roles, we aim to investigate the relationship between a CEO’s compliance with agentic male gender roles and investors reactions during an Initial Public Offering (IPO). We seek to examine the compliance with agentic male gender roles independently of whether it is to be found in male or female CEOs. We argue that investors will appreciate CEOs acting in line with male gender and, therefore, traditional leadership roles. We will apply a mixed method approach to gain a better understanding of investor reactions to CEO agentic behavior during an IPO. In a first step we will use a video analysis of speeches of CEOs held during road show events around the time of the firm’s IPO to infer a CEO’s compliance with male gender roles. Based on the derived "agency Rating" of the CEOs, we will investigate the impact of CEO agency on investor reactions. In a second step we will replicate the video study in a controlled setting to get an understanding of the mechanisms behind the effects found in study 1, and to investigate how the agentic male gender role interacts with biological sex. In this controlled setting, we will test whether the appreciation of CEO agentic behavior follows the same patterns for both sexes.