Challenging the established notion that women at the top are consistently risk averse, this study combines insights from social identity and socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspectives to propose a novel view of risk preferences by women and men CEOs in family businesses. It reframes risk preferences as behavioral responses by gender and family (managerial) role expectations relative to social aspirations. An empirical test of Italian firms provides support for the hypothesized effects. For firms above social aspirations, women family CEOs take more risk as performance declines than their men family counterparts; this gap in risk preferences attenuates for men/women nonfamily CEOs. For firms below social aspirations, these effects are reversed. This study contributes to research on gender identity and risk-taking in family firms by showing that women and men do not always behave according to gender stereotypes. Rather, due to malleability of gender identity, they enact differing risk behaviors across contexts. In addition, it advances SEW theory by unpacking the effects of distinct SEW dimensions on firm risk by gender identity.

挑战高层女性始终厌恶风险的既定观念，本研究结合了社会身份和社会情感财富 (SEW) 观点的见解，提出了家族企业中男女 CEO 风险偏好的新观点。它将风险偏好重新定义为性别和家庭（管理）角色期望相对于社会期望的行为反应。对意大利公司的实证检验为假设效应提供了支持。对于超越社会期望的公司，女性家族 CEO 比男性家族 CEO 在业绩下降时承担更多风险；男性/女性非家族企业 CEO 的风险偏好差距会缩小。对于低于社会期望的公司，这些影响是相反的。本研究表明女性和男性的行为并不总是按照性别刻板印象，有助于研究家族企业的性别认同和风险承担。相反，由于性别认同的可塑性，他们会在不同情况下做出不同的风险行为。此外，它通过揭示不同 SEW 维度对性别认同对公司风险的影响来推进 SEW 理论。