In surprising news to old boys’ clubs everywhere, research findings indicate appointing women to company boards and installing them in C-suites has correlated with positive bottom-line performance.

Several studies have shown when boards had at least one woman on them the absolute, and relative share prices–as well as overall financial performance of these organizations–surpassed those of companies who host boardrooms comprised solely of men.

This noteworthy outcome has generated heated debate between two camps: those that believe women are critical to the success of any enterprise, and those that think women are merely coincidental to performance outcomes of these companies, for whom success was already on the docket regardless of a board’s gender makeup.

The debate can be neatly summed up by the old chicken or egg argument: Are organizations performing better because women are on boards and C-suites, or are women being appointed to boards and C-suites of organizations that already are–or are on the cusp of–performing well?

While the research never addresses the chicken-egg conundrum, a logical way to explain this is why a interesting relationship exists. We just have to do some simple math.

Think back to high school when we learned transitive theory in mathematics. The theory asserts if A=B and B=C, then A=C. In our explanation:

A = Women

B = Successful teams

C = Financial performance

First, we need to agree boards and C-suites are teams; not just a collection of executives. According to the Business Dictionary, an executive is a person or group appointed and given the responsibility to manage the affairs of an organization, and has the authority to make decisions within specified boundaries.