From the Boardroom to the Jobsite: Female Board Representation and Workplace Safety

Abstract

Contributing to emerging research on corporate governance and operations management, our study examines the connection between board diversity and workplace safety. We propose that boards with a higher representation of female directors prioritize and thus enhance workplace safety due to women's distinct social-cognitive perspectives on stakeholders, risk avoidance, and regulatory compliance. We also consider two conditions that may strengthen the relationship between female board representation and workplace safety: (1) the power of the female directors on the board, which may cause them to speak out more, and cause others to heed their perspectives; (2) accountability pressures faced by the board, which may increase board member epistemological motivation (the willingness to invest effort to fully understand the board's tasks and decisions being made). Analyzing a unique dataset that covers 1442 firm-year observations across 266 firms, we show that female board representation improves workplace safety when women have more power and when boards face greater accountability pressures. In an empirical extension, we examine how the representation of racial/ethnic minority directors impacts workplace safety and the synergistic effect of female and minority board representation. Our findings deepen our understanding of how board diversity interacts with situational factors to influence operational outcomes.