The Study Of The Relationship Between Gender Difference In The Senior Management And The Accounting Conservatism

With the progress of economic development and women's rights movement, the status of the women in the society has been elevated. They have also broken through the traditional shackle of subordinating themselves to the husband and bringing up children. Hence, the female has gradually made their presence in the company management. As more women emerge in the commercial market originally dominated by the male, they have been playing an increasingly more important role. However, it should be noted that the male has still occupied the majority of the senior management. In other words, the female has not yet changed their position in the commercial society fundamentally.As an import index to measure the quality of accounting information, the accounting conservatism has captured wide attention in the academic and practical circles. In the face of the changed objective of the financial report, the accounting conservatism has become the focus of attention. In June of 2010, IASB and FASB released the Joint Conceptual Framework Project. The accounting conservatism is considered to coincide with such important quality characteristics as comparability and true reflection. Hence, it has been removed from the project. However, the accounting conservatism is still highly valued in China because of the unstable and fast changing economic market. Therefore, those enterprises in China are faced with many uncertain factors which will bring about various risks inevitably. The principle of accounting conservatism can help those enterprises prevent the risk, improve the quality of accounting information and restrain the opportunism. Hence, it can play an important role in protecting the interests of those owners and creditors.Many researches have found that there is an inherent difference between male management and female management in terms of thinking mode, personality and the way to deal with problems. A large number of scholars both at home and abroad have made a study of the gender difference in the senior management, enterprise operation and earning quality. On the other hand, there are still few researches into the relationship between the gender difference in the senior management and accounting conservatism. By adopting the data of A-stock companies going listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2014 as the sample, this paper has utilized the accrual / cash flow model to study the influence of the gender different in the senior management on the accounting conservatism. This paper will carry out the research from three levels. At the first level, it will research the presence of the female management, their proportion and the accounting conservatism. Based on the first level, the second-level research will be devoted to studying whether the female assumes the role of CEO and CFO as well as accounting conservatism. The third-level research will go further to study the features of the female CEO and CFO as well as the accounting conservatism.The conclusion of this research is presented as follows. Firstly, the presence of female management can significantly improve the accounting conservatism. The proportion of the female management is positively related to the accounting conservatism. Secondly, the accounting conservatism is not significantly related to whether CEO is assumed by the female. In contrast, the accounting conservatism is positively related to the CFO assumed by the female. Thirdly, the accounting conservatism will improve with the term of the female CFO. The accounting conservatism will improve with the age of the female CFO. The accounting conservatism is not significantly related to the educational level. This paper has gone deeper into the research on the female management from three levels. In addition to broadening the dimension of the research into the female management, it will also provide the empirical basis for the study of the relationship between the gender difference in the senior management and the accounting conservatism. Based on the current status of the female management in China, this paper will also offer some advice on overcoming the glass-ceiling barrier, raising the proportion of the female management an d improving the team of senior management.