Influence of the mentoring relationship between board chairs and women CEOs on firm performance in Australia: a social role perspective

Abstract Underrepresentation of women in CEO and board-chair roles persists despite decades of scholarly effort, posing a major societal concern by depriving societies of the positive contributions of women’s leadership. While existing studies have predominantly investigated boards’ monitoring and advisory roles, our study departs from this tradition by examining the mentoring role of board-chairs. We aim to identify why the CEO role remains male dominated and specifically investigate whether the ultimate objective outcomes of mentoring contribute to the women’s scarcity in C-suite roles in Australia. We draw on the social role theory to study whether the gender of the board-chair (man or woman) affects the relationship between a woman CEO and company performance. Using a two-stage least squares regression on Australian Stock Exchange 100 (ASX-100) companies from 2010 to 2020, our findings indicate that the outcomes of diverse mentoring not only fail to close the gender gap but may actually exacerbate it within ASX-100 firms.