scholarly journals Does Gender Diversity Affect the Environmental Performance of Banks?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10172
Author(s):  
Clara Gallego-Sosa ◽  
Yakira Fernández-Torres ◽  
Milagros Gutiérrez-Fernández

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Therefore, all segments of society must act together to stop the deterioration of the planet and the depletion of its resources. The business sector must play an active role in acting responsibly toward the environment. Given the importance of this issue, major efforts have been made to analyze the environmental performance of the most polluting sectors. In contrast, other sectors that are also of great interest due to their contribution to sustainable development, such as the banking sector, have been overlooked. Notable factors conditioning performance include aspects of corporate governance such as gender diversity. However, the empirical evidence reveals a lack of consensus regarding the influence of women directors on corporate environmental performance. This background motivates the study of the commitment of the banking sector to reducing their environmental impact and the analysis the influence of board gender diversity on environmental performance. Data for the period 2009 to 2018 on 52 banks from the most polluting Western regions were studied using descriptive statistics and fixed effects econometric estimation to test the relationship between a selection of relevant variables. The key conclusions are that banks are committed to protecting the environment and that there are no significant differences between banks’ commitment to the planet on the basis of board gender diversity.

Author(s):  
Yakira Fernández-Torres ◽  
Milagros Gutiérrez-Fernández ◽  
Clara Gallego-Sosa

The tourism sector is a driver of economic development characterised by its environmental impact. It is a prevalent part of the 2030 Agenda, given its potential to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the same time, board gender diversity is considered essential for companies to implement environmentally sustainable initiatives. However, analysis of the relationship between the role of women on boards and environmental performance has been neglected in the tourism literature. This paper adopts a novel approach to the study of this sector by analysing the relationship between gender diversity on the board of directors and companies’ environmental practices. A fixed effects model is estimated using an international sample of 120 listed tourism companies for the period 2002 to 2019. The results show that boards that are more gender diverse and have a greater female presence are associated with poorer environmental performance and a weaker implementation of policies and practices to reduce resource use and emissions. However, board gender diversity aids performance in environmental innovation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sitara Karim

PurposeThe prime objective of this study is to investigate the moderating influence of executive and independent female directors on the relationship between remuneration packages (CEO and executive director) and socially responsible practices (marketplace, environment, community, workplace and money spent on CSR) of 483 Malaysian listed firms during 2006–2017.Design/methodology/approachThe dynamic estimator, namely, system generalized method of moments (GMM) given by Blundell and Bond (1998) has been employed on the dataset to control dynamic endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity problems.FindingsFindings indicate that there is a significant relationship between remuneration patterns of CEOs and executive directors and socially responsible activities. In the same way, executive board gender diversity significantly, whereas independent board gender diversity insignificantly moderates the remuneration and CSR nexus.Practical implicationsThis study is particularly significant for regulatory bodies of Malaysia, e.g. Securities Commission Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, policy makers, investors and managers. For academia, this study fetches support from agency theory, stakeholder theory and upper echelons theory and presents integrated theoretical approach to be considered for future research.Originality/valueThis paper is unique in providing empirical evidence on the moderating effect of both executive and independent women directors on the relationship between remuneration patterns of CEOs and executive directors and independent CSR activities for the first time. Moreover, this study has sourced several theoretical and practical implications. And, the study employs dynamic estimator for precise and concrete results.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faisal Shahzad ◽  
Mushahid Hussain Baig ◽  
Ijaz Ur Rehman ◽  
Fawad Latif ◽  
Bruno S. Sergi

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study whether the presence of women directors on the corporate board influences financial performance (FP). To examine the underlying causal mechanism, the authors modeled firm-level intellectual capital efficiency (ICE) in the relationshipbetween board gender diversity (BGD) and FP. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 5,879 US firms, a structural model of BGD, IC and FP is conceptualized by accounting for the endogeneity issues and alternative measures of the key variables in the empirical framework. In the model, the percentage of women directors is taken as BGD measures and value-added intellectual coefficient as an IC performance measure, considering governance and corporate performance measures. Findings The authors find a significant impact of BGD on FP. In particular, the results suggest: BGD is linked to IC; the influence of board gender diversity on the FP is indirect; and ICE fully mediates the relationship between BGD and FP. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has empirically investigated whether the firm-level IC performance explains the influence of BGD on FP. Drawing on the resource-based view and organizational learning theory of the firm, the authors empirically modeled the relationship between BGD and FP through a mediation mechanism of firm-level ICE to fill the void in the literature.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asma’a Al-Amarneh ◽  
Hadeel Yaseen ◽  
Majd Iskandrani

This paper aims to investigate the impact of board gender diversity on dividend policy in the context of Jordanian commercial banks. Using a sample of 13 Jordanian commercial banks listed on Amman Stock Exchange during the period 2005-2014, we find strong and robust evidence indicating that diversified boards tend to pay higher cash dividends to shareholders since women can better address the needs of investors in impatient emerging markets. Moreover, this paper presents the negative moderating effect of both, the government existence in the boardroom and international financial crisis on the relationship between gender diversity and dividend policy indicators. Under such conditions, the diversified boards became more conservative and retained most of the profit and paid fewer dividends because of the risk-averse tendencies of women directors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Panagiotis E. Dimitropoulos ◽  
Konstantinos Koronios

The scope of this study is to examine the impact of board gender diversity on corporate cash-holding decisions within the European sport and leisure sector. A sample of 125 unique firms was selected for the period from 2008 to 2019, and analysis was performed using panel fixed-effects regressions. Empirical evidence documented that the higher the number of women serving on the board of directors, the higher the level of cash the firm holds. This result is attributed to the critical mass theory of governance, suggesting that boards having at least two women directors are associated with higher cash holdings compared to firms with one or no women directors. Additionally, gender diversity leads to increased cash holdings for firms with lower governance quality, suggesting that women on boards perform a monitoring role within those firms with the most severe agency problems. The results remain robust after several sensitivity tests controlling for potential endogeneity among the variables and the model’s functional form.


Author(s):  
Michael Adusei ◽  
Beatrice Sarpong-Danquah

Abstract We test the effect of institutional quality on capital structure in the microfinance setting. In doing this, we rely on data from 532 microfinance institutions (MFIs) located in 73 countries dotted across the six microfinance regions in the world. We observe that institutional quality exhibits a robust negative and statistically significant relationship with capital structure in both the short and long run, implying that MFIs in countries with a better institutional environment are less likely to utilize more debt. Our moderation analysis furnishes us with evidence that the presence of women on the board of an MFI significantly moderates the relationship between institutional quality and its capital structure. We show that in the presence of more female representation on the boards of MFIs, the tendency of MFIs using less debt is higher.


Plant Disease ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Beluzán ◽  
Xavier Miarnau ◽  
Laura Torguet ◽  
Lourdes Zazurca ◽  
Paloma Abad-Campos ◽  
...  

Twenty-five almond cultivars were assessed for susceptibility to Diaporthe amygdali, causal agent of twig canker and shoot blight disease. In laboratory experiments, growing twigs were inoculated with four D. amygdali isolates. Moreover, growing shoots of almond cultivars grafted onto INRA ‘GF-677’ rootstock were used in four-year field inoculations with one D. amygdali isolate. In both type of experiments, inoculum consisted of agar plugs with mycelium, which were inserted underneath the bark and the lesion lengths caused by the fungus were measured. Necrotic lesions were observed in the inoculated almond cultivars both in laboratory and field tests, confirming the susceptibility of all the evaluated cultivars to all the inoculated isolates of D. amygdali. Cultivars were grouped as susceptible or very susceptible according to a cluster analysis. The relationship between some agronomic traits and cultivar susceptibility was also investigated. Blooming and ripening times were found relevant variables to explain cultivars performance related to D. amygdali susceptibility. Late and very late blooming, and early and medium ripening cultivars were highly susceptible to D. amygdali. Our results may provide valuable information that could assist in ongoing breeding programs of this crop and additionally in the selection of cultivars for new almond plantations.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahnoor Sattar ◽  
Pallab Kumar Biswas ◽  
Helen Roberts

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationship between board gender diversity and private firm performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors test the association between board gender diversity and private firm performance by estimating pooled multivariate regressions using an unbalanced panel data set of 115,253 firm-year observations. Findings The authors find that younger, less busy and local women directors enhance private firm performance. Firms with 40% or more women directors report triple the economic benefits compared to boards with at least 20% women directors. Considering firm size, women directors significantly increase small firm profitability, and the effect is more pronounced for high-risk firms. Greater board gender diversity enhances small firm performance as the monitoring role of women directors benefits the firm even in the presence of busy men directors. Consistent with the agency theory framework, the authors find that women directors improve small firm profitability in the presence of agency costs. Research limitations/implications Due to the lack of availability of data about private firms, many factors are not directly observable. The analysis uses accounting-based performance measures that may be subject to managerial discretion. Nevertheless, the authors report highly significant results using cash-based performance measures that substantiate the overall findings. Practical implications The results of the present study point to the need for private firms to increase board gender diversity and consider women director busyness, age, nationality and firm size when making board director appointments. Originality/value This study adds to the scarce existent literature investigating private firms. The results contribute to the understanding of gender-diverse boards as well as the attributes of women directors that enhance private firm performance.


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