Female ownership, firm age and firm growth: a study of South Asian firms

Belitski, M. and Desai, S. (2021) Female ownership, firm age and firm growth: a study of South Asian firms. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 38 (3). pp. 825-855. ISSN 1572-9958 doi: 10.1007/s10490-019-09689-7

Abstract/Summary

This study investigates the role of female ownership, and its moderating role in shaping the effect of firm age and access to finance on firm growth. We use a sample of 7203 firms in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and a mixed effects model, where both firm and regional characteristics are included. First, we test how women’s ownership affects two measures of firm growth (employment growth and Birch Index). Second, we investigate how women’s ownership influences the relationship between firm age and access to finance for firm growth. Our results indicate that gender is an important determinant of firm growth, but this is closely tied to firm age, access to finance, and varies with region and country. We conduct a robustness check using firm productivity instead of growth and we find largely opposite results for productivity compared to employment growth ownership. We also identify questions that emerge from our findings for managers and policy makers interested in women-owned firms.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/90524
Identification Number/DOI	10.1007/s10490-019-09689-7
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > Digitalisation, Marketing and Entrepreneurship
Publisher	Springer
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