10279: The Impact of Global Citizenship Culture on Meeting Government-Regulated Gender Board Quotas (session 26389)

The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda includes gender equality in leadership as one of its key goals. However, the gap between the current reality and that sustainability goal is persistent with only 32% of S&P board seats held by women in 2023. This persistent disparity has led to significant pressure for change from a variety of corporate stakeholders. We examine government-mandated quotas as a stakeholder mechanism to address this gap – specifically California’s legislation of gender quotas. We theorize that organizational culture plays a large role in the success of organizational initiatives, such as those around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and examine global citizenship culture as a mechanism to predict which firms will have a greater commitment to diversity, and thus be more likely to meet the quota and achieve better business performance. We find support for our hypotheses in an archival study of 310 public companies headquartered in California that were subject to quota legislation, with especially strong support in companies that have experienced recent poor performance. Our research contributes to research on management, sustainability, and government and has practical implications for understanding how corporate culture affects adherence to, and the impact of, government regulation.

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