CFO Gender and Financial Statement Irregularities

The increasing presence of women in upper echelon positions draws attention to the possible effects of executive gender on corporate decisions and actions. In this study, we formulate theory about the impact of chief financial officer (CFO) gender on financial misreporting to generate two key insights. First, we hypothesize that firms with female CFOs will have a lower likelihood of financial misreporting than comparable firms with male CFOs. Second, we argue that the relation between CFO gender and financial misreporting will be contingent on governance mechanisms (e.g., institutional ownership and analyst coverage), such that misreporting of firms with male CFOs will differ more compared to that of firms with female CFOs when governance is weak. Our results, based on a novel leading indicator of the likelihood of financial misreporting, provide support for our predictions. Various alternative econometric specifications, including (but not limited to) exogenous shocks, propensity score matching, and modeling treatment effects, random effects, firm fixed effects, and hybrid effects provide general support for our theory and hypotheses. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.