Board gender diversity and sustainability reporting quality

Based on the notion that a diverse board will take a more balanced view and pay greater attention to social responsibility and stakeholder concerns, this paper examines the effect of board gender diversity, measured using a range of proxies, on sustainability reporting quality. After controlling for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of contemporary accounting & economics Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 210 - 222
Main Authors Al-Shaer, Habiba, Zaman, Mahbub
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2016
Subjects
Boards
Diversity
Gender
Sustainability reporting
Gender
Boards
Sustainability reporting
Diversity
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Summary:Based on the notion that a diverse board will take a more balanced view and pay greater attention to social responsibility and stakeholder concerns, this paper examines the effect of board gender diversity, measured using a range of proxies, on sustainability reporting quality. After controlling for corporate governance as well as firm reporting incentives, reporting behaviour and reporting environment, we find that gender diverse boards are associated with higher quality sustainability reports and independent female directors have greater effect on sustainability reporting quality than female directors. Our findings have implications for policy formulation and provide evidence for a softer ‘comply or explain’ (as opposed to quota based) approach to encourage board gender diversity and its effects on sustainability reporting quality.
ISSN:1815-5669
DOI:10.1016/j.jcae.2016.09.001