Female Power: The Relationship Between Female CEOs and ESG Performance in Family Firms

ABSTRACT Prior studies offer mixed conclusions about whether female CEOs improve ESG performance in family firms, often overlooking critical differences in leadership pathways. Drawing on social identity theory, we argue that female entrepreneurial‐entry and female inter‐generational‐succession face fundamentally different identity tasks, and therefore pursue different ESG benchmarks. Female entrepreneurial‐entry can author and imprint a prosocial organizational identity, using ESG to differentiate the firm and signal values that exceed industry aspiration levels. By contrast, female inter‐generational‐succession steps into an inherited family identity and operates under stronger scrutiny from gender stereotypes; as a legitimacy strategy, they are more likely to calibrate ESG investments to what is seen as appropriate and defensible in their industry, producing ESG conformity rather than outperformance. We further propose that rice culture, a regionally embedded collectivist ethos, strengthens both mechanisms by reinforcing founders' prosocial orientation and intensifying successors' conformity pressures. Based on Chinese family firms, our analysis reveals that female entrepreneurial‐entry increases ESG above aspiration, whereas female inter‐generational‐succession increases ESG conformity. Furthermore, both effects are amplified in stronger rice‐culture regions. This study significantly advances understanding of how leadership origin and cultural context shape ESG through identity‐based mechanisms.