Using a hand-collected sample of 18,269 equity analysts from 42 countries over the period of 2004 to 2019, we establish an intriguing negative association between a country’s institutional/economic development and its female share of equity analysts. We show that, in individualistic countries only, there is no gender gap in analyst forecast accuracy. We further show that female analysts are more skilled and more likely to drop out when underperforming in individualistic countries compared to peers in collectivistic countries. The evidence supports our hypothesis that the national cultural value of individualism encourages women to make career choices consistent with their general aversion to competition.

Based on the Competing Values Framework (CVF), we score 10-K text to measure company culture in four types (collaborative, controlling, competitive, and creative) and examine its role in firm stability. We find that firms with higher controlling culture fared significantly better during the 2008–09 crisis. Firms with stronger controlling culture experienced fewer layoffs, less negative asset growth, greater debt issuance, and increased access to credit-line facilities during the crisis. The positive effect of the controlling culture is stronger among the financially-constrained firms. Overall, the controlling culture improves firm stability through greater support from capital providers.