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On December 15, 2025, the Global Network Seminar was held, and the seminar welcomed Prof. Dr. Phouphet Kyophilavong, Vice President of the National University of Laos.

Under the theme “Does the Gender of Managers and Owners Matter for a Firm’s Productivity?”, Professor Kyophilavong examined the relationship between the gender of firm managers and owners and firm productivity, drawing primarily on empirical evidence from Laos.

In his lecture, Professor Kyophilavong presented empirical findings on the relationship between firm productivity and the gender of managers and business owners in Laos. The findings indicated that, in the Lao context, female entrepreneurs tend to exhibit higher productivity than their male counterparts. He further discussed the structural and contextual factors that may underlie this pattern. The lecture emphasized the importance of interpreting gender differences in productivity with caution, taking into account firm characteristics, institutional environments, and the relationship between prevailing gender norms and economic behavior, rather than attributing differences in productivity solely to gender itself. Methodological challenges in analyzing the relationship between gender and firm performance in developing-country contexts were also discussed.

A total of 30 students participated in the seminar. During the question-and-answer session, participants engaged in active discussions on how the higher productivity observed among female entrepreneurs could inform policy design, whether the findings from Laos could be compared with those from other ASEAN countries, and how unobserved factors affecting productivity should be addressed in the analysis. The seminar provided a valuable opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of the relationship between gender and firm productivity through empirical evidence from Laos, while also reflecting on the institutional and social factors surrounding women’s economic participation and business management, as well as their policy implications.