Beyond Tokenism: Feminist Institutional Analysis of Declining Executive Power Amid Rising Female Representation in Chinese Listed Companies

This study aims to systematically examine whether the increasing representation of female executives in Chinese listed companies translates into enhanced organizational influence, by analyzing their comprehensive power through a multidimensional framework rooted in feminist institutional theory.

Leveraging feminist institutional theory, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of power dynamics among female executives in Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2021. The study employs a multidimensional analysis of power origins to evaluate the structural and substantive aspects of executive authority.

Our analysis reveals that while the proportion of female executives has steadily increased during this period, the gender power gap has concurrently widened. This disparity is particularly pronounced in inland China, and within the core executive group (excluding independent directors and supervisors), where the power gap significantly exceeds that observed in the broader executive population. This pattern reflects a fundamental conflict between formal and informal institutions, wherein firms engage in symbolic compliance: while formally adhering to gender diversity policies, they systematically relegate women to peripheral roles with high visibility but limited substantive authority through informal patriarchal norms. This institutional conflict leads informal forces to neutralize the intended effects of formal equality measures.

This study provides a novel feminist institutional analysis that identifies and theorizes symbolic compliance as a core organizational mechanism in China's corporate governance environment. It moves beyond describing the tension between formal equity policies and informal biases, to reveal how this tension is actively managed by firms through strategic personnel arrangements that perpetuate tokenistic marginalization. The introduction of a multidimensional, quantifiable framework to measure executive power further advances methodological capabilities beyond simplistic numeric representation studies.