Gender Differences

Apparently, the first time the question ‘Would the world be in this financial mess if it had been Lehman Sisters’ was asked was in February 2009 at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos during one of the panels. It referred to Lehman Brothers, a global financial services firm. Its high-profile bankruptcy in 2008, which was the largest in US history at the time, is frequently cited as a pivotal moment of the 2008 financial crisis. Two studies among Fortune 500 companies, with data from respectively 2007 and 2010, showed that as the number of female directors increased, the likelihood of a company being listed on Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies also increased. As one of the studies mentioned, this raises an interesting question: ‘Do more ethical companies choose women to be on their boards of directors, or do women influence how ethical a company is?’ Research into whether women and men differ in moral judgement has produced varied insights, often reflecting broader debates on gender, socialisation, and moral reasoning.