Female directors and CEO power

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of boardroom gender diversity on CEO power. CEO power is measured using CEO tenure, duality and board independence. We use multivariate regression to test the hypotheses. Our sample is 122 firms listed with Tehran Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018. We find reliable evidence that gender diversity on the board is positively associated with CEO power. Our results support the inefficiency hypothesis that suggests that CEOs are more powerful when the board is gender-diverse because female directors face more pressure to go along with management and are weak monitors.