Pressures from afar, and far from pressured? International shareholder and stakeholder pressures and female board appointments

While prior research shows that pressure from corporate constituents can improve board gender diversity, it often treats external pressures as equivalent and offers limited explanation of when female board appointments represent substantive governance change rather than symbolic compliance. We extend resource dependence theory’s explanatory reach in governance reform by arguing that external pressures vary in their configurations of governance relevance and enforceability, which shape the depth of firms’ responses to external pressure. We contrast two forms of international pressure that represent different ideal–typical configurations. We argue that international shareholder pressure, characterized by greater governance relevance and enforceability, is more likely to induce substantive female appointments. By contrast, international stakeholder pressure, driven more strongly by societal expectations and characterized by lower governance relevance and enforceability, is more likely to elicit appointments exhibiting patterns of symbolic management. Using a sample of Japanese public firms from 2005 to 2021, we find that international shareholder pressure is more strongly associated with appointing women to more influential board positions, whereas international stakeholder pressure is more strongly associated with appointments to less influential roles. Moreover, the effect of international stakeholder pressure weakens at higher levels of existing female board representation, whereas this attenuating effect is less pronounced for international shareholder pressure. These findings highlight the role of international pressures in advancing board gender diversity and reveal how the configuration of governance relevance and enforceability shapes the extent of symbolic compliance in firms’ responses to external pressure.