Encouraging environmental sustainability through gender : a micro-foundational approach using linguistic gender marking

SHOHAM, Amir, ALMOR, Tamar, LEE, Sang Mook and AHAMMAD, Mohammad (2017). Encouraging environmental sustainability through gender : a micro-foundational approach using linguistic gender marking. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38 (9), 1356-1379.

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Abstract

While studies show that organizational diversity is beneficial to organizations’ practice of environmental sustainability, we know very little about the effect that the gender of an individual director can have on sustainability practice. In this empirical paper, we employ a micro-foundational approach to examine whether the number of women on an organization’s board of directors has a direct effect on its attitude towards environmental sustainability, regardless of the national culture in which the organization is located. Culture in this study is measured through grammatical gender marking, a unique approach to measuring female-oriented cultural effects. Previous studies show that certain cultures have more gender roles than others, which in turn affects general and organizational behavior in that society. Grammatical gender marking enables us to study the impact of gender of the individual director on the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability across cultures, by empirically examining data from 71 countries, sampling a total of 4,500 organizations for multiple years and industries. Our findings show that organizations become significantly more proactive in environmental sustainability with the appointment of even one woman to the board of directors, regardless of the local culture. We further show that the organization’s level of disclosure regarding its sustainability activities, increases with the number of women on the board of directors. Our data also show a significantly negative relationship between various gender-based language indices and the presence of women on the board of directors. In cultures defined by a language that has clear grammatical gender markings, there is a tendency to appoint fewer women to boards of directors, thereby influencing indirectly the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability.

Item Type:	Article
Research Institute, Centre or Group - Does NOT include content added after October 2018:	Sheffield Business School Research Institute > International Business, Economics, SMEs and Entrepreneurship
Departments - Does NOT include content added after October 2018:	Sheffield Business School > Department of Management
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2188
Page Range:	1356-1379
Depositing User:	Mohammad Ahammad
Date Deposited:	12 Apr 2017 11:09
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2021 01:05
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15495

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