關於女性董事的文獻經常是直接檢驗女性董事（董事會組成）與企業績效之間的關係。他們通常忽視連結董事會組成與企業績效的中介因素，很少考慮具有女性董事的董事會採取怎樣不同的決策，然後考慮這樣的決策如何影響企業績效。本研究的目的是想探索女性董事如何影響董事會進行裁員的決策，進而中介女性董事與企業績效之間的關係。本研究將建構臺灣製造業上市櫃公司1996-2019年的追蹤資料來進行分析。需注意到的是，在這具有中介變數和反向因果關係的計量模型中，會出現明顯的內生性問題。因此，本研究將採用動態追蹤資料模型和GMM估計程序來緩解內生性偏差。本研究認為在臺灣的社會文化背景下，女性董事的認知框架和人力資本可以促進企業會計績效的改善，但投資者對女性的傳統偏見可能會淡化女性董事對企業市場績效的影響，不利於企業的市場價值。然而，當聚焦在中介的裁員策略所帶來的女性董事與績效的間接效果時，因為女性董事的領導風格、核心價值觀和偏好可能會讓董事會考慮更多利害關係人的利益，因此可以預期董事會中女性董事比例較高的企業會進行較少的裁員，而這種以員工為導向的人才保留策略構成穩定的雇用政策，將有利於企業績效。也可以進一步預期，這種因為裁員中介作用所產生的對企業績效的正向間接效果與投資者的偏見應該沒有關係，也就是它會反映在會計績效以及股票市場的表現上。期望本研究的結果能夠就女性在董事會中決定企業的關鍵策略，即裁員策略，進而影響企業績效的關係上提供更廣泛的觀點和更多的發現。 ;Most of existent studies have directly estimated the relationship between women on boards (board composition) and firm performance. They usually overlook the mediating factors that possibly link board composition to firm performance. They rarely consider what actions a board with female directors tends to make, and how such actions affect firm performance. The purpose of this study is to examine how female board representation shapes the board's involvement in the strategy of employment downsizing, which in turn mediates the female directors' influence on firm performance. The analysis will be based on the panel data of Taiwanese manufacturing firms over 1996–2019. It can be noted that significant causality problems are contained in an econometric model with mediating variables and reverse causality, so I will mitigate the endogeneity bias by adopting appropriate dynamic panel methods and GMM estimation procedures. I contend that in Taiwanese socio-cultural context, the cognitive frames and human capital female directors bring to boards can promote the improvement of the firm's accounting-based performance, but investors' general bias against women may dilute such positive impact and lead to unfavorable market valuation of the firms with female directors. I further argue that when focusing on the indirect effect of women on boards through the mediation of employment downsizing, perhaps because female directors' leadership style, core values and preferences may bring perspectives that require the board to consider a wider variety of stakeholders, the firms with a higher fraction of female directors on the board are predicted to implement less employment downsizing, and this employee-oriented and talent-retaining strategy constitutes a stable employment policy, which will be beneficial to firm performance. It can also be predicted that this positive indirect impact on firm performance is investors' bias-free, that is, it will be reflected on both accounting-based performance and stock market performance. In sum, I expect this study to provide broader views and more findings about the role of women on boards in determining a key strategy of the firms, namely employment downsizing, and then influencing the firm performance.
