Corporate Governance, CSR and Moderate Feminism – An Institutional Setting

Over the past decade, dynamic women have publicly been noticeable promoting feminism. Women have now progressed to boardroom in organisations proving their efficiency (Krishnan and Parson, 2008; Gul et al., 2011, Srinidhi et al., 2011; Post and Byron, 2014). Researchers have confirmed positive relationship between women on board of directors and CSR (Wang and Coffey, 1992; Williams, 2003; Bear et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2013; Setó‐Pamies, 2015). The percentage of women in senior management teams is found 25% in 2017 globally (IBR, 2017). However, there is a growing trend of adopting moderate feminism where individuated subject recognises the persistence of gender inequalities but perceives the solution to inequality as dependent on individual action (Rottenberg, 2014). Researchers started to realise the importance of institution (Mahoney, 2005) and its impact on feminism movement and company performances. The institutional perspective is that while institutions are not homogeneous, are under social influence and pressure to adopt and be consistent with institutional environment and can be defined as ‘‘regulative, normative, and cognitive structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behaviour’’ (Scot, 1995). North (1990, p.3) defined institutions as ‘‘the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction’’. This makes institutional setting to be considered essential to explore its effect on feminism to reduce negative effects on firm performances. The relationship between institutional settings and feminism in a framework of institutional theory have not been explored and possess a gap in the literature. The study sets out to establish the relationship between institutional settings, moderate feminism and firm performances through critical review of existing literature and providing a conceptual framework for future empirical research.