Should women continue to be less preferred for managerial positions? Evidence from Greece based on public hospitals’ financial performance

Purpose This study aims to enrich the debate on whether women should continue to be under-represented in the upper echelons of organisations. Evidence arrives from the health-care battlefield and, more specifically, the Greek public hospitals assessed in terms of financial performance. Design/methodology/approach The whole set of Greek public hospitals operating in 2022 were included in a quantitative approach, whereby financial ratios reflect financial performance, while the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Chief Financial Officer (CFO) gender reflects the female representation. Descriptive statistics analysis, t -tests and correlation analysis were performed. Findings The findings of this study suggest that female CEOs significantly outperformed their male counterparts on liquidity and accounts payable turnover, while female CFOs surpassed males concerning inventory turnover. Contrarily, hospitals with male CFOs achieved higher profitability, but income statements seem self-manipulated thanks to state subsidies and cash accounting techniques. Women appear to focus on those components of financial performance which are better aligned to the social role of public entities, while their contribution to non-financial performance is also underpinned by previous research. Practical implications Women’s under-representation in management positions was partially confirmed, as less than 1 / 4 of hospitals appoint a female CEO but circa 7 / 10 of them appoint a female CFO. This could be attributed to stereotypes combined with policy and governance factors. The latter were discussed well in this paper shaping a roadmap towards better gender equality in health-care settings. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first effort to investigate the association between managers’ gender and financial performance in Greek health care.