This study investigates the relationship between the gender of chief executive officers (CEOs) and firms’ employee relations, as proxied by labor lawsuits. Drawing on gender socialization, upper echelons, and stakeholder theories, this study hypothesizes that firms with female CEOs have superior employee relations. Using a hand-collected sample of 11,970 labor lawsuits filed against Standard & Poor's 1500 firms from 2001–2014, the empirical results show that firms led by female CEOs experience fewer labor lawsuits. The findings are robust to a series of additional analyses to alleviate endogeneity concerns. The evidence from this study provides novel insights into the role of female corporate leaders in the context of employee relations.

这项研究调查了由劳工诉讼代理的首席执行官（CEO）性别与企业雇员关系之间的关系。利用性别社会化，高层和利益相关者理论，本研究假设拥有女性CEO的公司具有良好的员工关系。使用从2001年至2014年对标准普尔1500家公司提起的11,970例劳动诉讼的手工收集样本，实证结果表明，以女性CEO为首的公司遭受的劳动诉讼较少。该发现对于一系列其他分析来缓解内生性问题是可靠的。这项研究的证据提供了关于女性公司领导者在员工关系中的角色的新颖见解。