Female Directors and UK Company Acquisitiveness

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.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 20

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

JEL Classification: G34, M14

working papers series