**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *Forced CEO turnover probability is higher when the CEO is a woman*.

These hypotheses were tested in an economic environment that can be considered as ambiguous and unstable, with a first sub-period of exceptional economic growth, followed by a severe financial crisis. The financial crisis, which started in 2008, brought a general deterioration of the economic conditions and we could thus expect an increase in the probability of forced CEO turnover (Kaplan and Minton 2012). At the same time, financial difficulties augment the occupational stress of CEOs and may lead to more frequent occurrences of CEO turnover. In times of crisis, companies are confronted with a great deal of ambiguity in the strategic planning process and in their business environment, and so should try to rely more on intuition and creativity in many parts of the management process, including in decisions regarding their top managers and whether to change them (e.g., CEO turnover). Based on the extensive literature in the field, Ogilvie (1998) showed that imagination and creativity become more suitable to manage unstructured, random, and contradictory data from the environment. In this context, we analyzed how the Romanian listed companies decide to manage a very turbulent period, with this study focusing on the criteria for CEO turnover (gender, nationality, and/or the level of political intrusion into a company's life).
