Female Directors and UK Company Acquisitiveness

20 Pages Posted: 29 Jan 2012 Last revised: 23 Sep 2013

See all articles by Michael M. Dowling

Michael M. Dowling

Dublin City University Business School; ESC Rennes School of Business

Zakaria Ali Aribi

University of Central Lancashire - Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise

Date Written: August 11, 2012

Abstract

The presence, and proportion, of female directors is found to strongly influence the level of acquisitiveness of a company. This finding is made through a novel dataset covering significant size acquisitions made by FTSE 100 constituents between 2000 and 2011 and includes multiple controls for potential confounding financial and director characteristics. The main testing approach is a zero-inflated Poisson model, with a variety of alternative tests and specifications further reported to add to the robustness of the study. The finding draws on psychological and decision-making research showing females to be less overconfident in their decision-making.

Keywords: female directors, takeovers, overconfidence, zero-inflated Poisson

JEL Classification: G34, M14

Suggested Citation

Dowling, Michael M. and Aribi, Zakaria Ali, Female Directors and UK Company Acquisitiveness (August 11, 2012). International Review of Financial Analysis, Vol. 29, 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1992747 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1992747

Michael M. Dowling (Contact Author)

Dublin City University Business School ( email )

Dublin 9
Ireland

ESC Rennes School of Business ( email )

Rue Robert d'arbrissel, 2
Rennes, 35000
France

Zakaria Ali Aribi

University of Central Lancashire - Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise ( email )

Preston, PR1 2HE
United Kingdom

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