Women’s Participation in Top Management Business Positions and the Internationalization Process. Evidence for Chilean Companies

In recent times, women have been increasing their participation in company management positions, occupying positions on the board of directors, and making strategic decisions with a view to the international expansion of the firms. However, the evidence of the participation of women in the processes of internationalization of companies is not conclusive or adequate for emerging economies, such as those in Latin America. Based on this premise, we conducted this research using data from 1,246 firms included in the Fifth Longitudinal Survey of Chilean Companies. These companies are categorized into four industries: 98 in extractive, 149 in manufacturing, 285 in Commercial, and 714 in services. A Tobit regression model to estimate the influence of the presence of women in senior management and gender diversity on boards on the export intensity of the company. The main findings show that women in the position of CEO and a higher percentage of women on boards of directors do not affect the export intensity of the company. They also show that the relationship between foreign ownership and export intensity was positive and, finally, that export intensity did not depend on gender diversity in high-level administrative positions. An important limitation of this research is not having a data panel for each company to estimate their evolution over time thus, as well as information related to compensation contracts for management teams. For future research, we are interested in studying the effect of ownership on the internationalization process.