Date of Award

6-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

First Advisor

Michal Strahilevitz

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between the gender of B-Corp leadership and the measurable dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) embodied by the certified B Corp program. This project builds off prior research findings that female-founded firms are more likely to qualify for and achieve B Corp certification from a population of firms completing B Lab’s impact score assessment. The independent variable of current top leader gender and the dependent variables of the B Corp impact scores, along with each of the five constituent subcategories, are tested to determine whether women-led firms outperform those led by men on CSR measures. The study findings affirm that current leader gender influences overall CSR performance and along the scored subcategories of customers, environment, and community. However, gender is not statistically significant along the dimensions of workers and governance. The population of current US-based certified B Corp firms, verified within the last three years, tests the extent to which gender of the leader influences firm performance across the measured categories of the B Lab Impact Score. The population of certified B Corps has undergone third- party verification of firm sustainability practices, enabling the study of the gap between corporate social responsibility and performance. The contribution of this study is the affirmation that women-led firms outperform on CSR performance overall and within the scored subcategories of the environment, community, and customers.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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