Banking disclosure and banking crises in Africa: does board gender diversity play a role?

The paper aims to investigate the impact of board gender diversity in explaining the relationship between bank disclosure and the predicted probability of banking crises in Africa. The study employs robust panel estimates based on an aggregate dataset of banks in 42 African countries over the 2006–2018 periods. From the study, board gender diversity (more women on boards and the presence of women on boards) has a positive impact on information disclosure of banks. We find that board gender diversity and bank disclosure have the possibility of reducing a banking crisis. We observe that board gender diversity enhances the reductive effect of bank disclosure on a predicted probability of a banking crisis. The implication is that women on boards provide prudent decisions on financial information disclosure that significantly reduce the possibility of a banking crises in order to ensure stable banking systems.

Does the Achievement of Gender Equality in Society Reflect on Gender Issues in Corporate Governance: The Case of the West Balkan's Banking Sector?

Driven by the idea that women do not realize their full potential in society based on not being equally paid, having lower education level than men and facing discrimination based on maternity leave have been a primary motivation to do the research on the following sources of data: HDI; GDI and GII indexes published for four West Balkan countries and average data of women on boards for the same countries experienced in the most developed and female-dominated industry such as banking. This idea helps us formulate primary research questions -if a country has a better human and gender development index it should have more women that actively participle in business and have a real influence on decision making. Our findings are in line with the fact that Slovenia and Croatia are leading countries in the West Balkan region in terms of the index mentioned, therefore shaping a better place for the position of women in society. On the other hand, Serbia has the lowest value of 2 out of 3 indexes. The similarity between bank board diversity can be found between Serbia and Slovenia. In those two countries, women occupy more positions on the executive boards, but fewer on the supervisory board. The situation is different for Croatia and Montenegro where more women are included in supervisory boards. Contribution is that in Western Balkan countries it is arguable that women have no real influence on businesses and results of operations in the banking sector despite the fact that the mentioned countries have quite a good ranking in the gender development reports.

Great Expectations: What shareholders and directors expect from New Zealand public company boards

<p>One of the key roles of corporate boards is to decide how the cash generated by these companies is distributed, and through these decisions they influence the wealth of many in our society. But beyond this task what is expected of corporate boards? Although researchers have spent decades examining boards, a general consensus regarding the objectives and tasks that they should perform has yet to emerge. Using a combination of primary and secondary research, this study examines the expectations that shareholders and directors have of corporate boards in New Zealand and identifies some concordance between their views and some of the extant literature. These findings highlight the contingent nature of corporate governance and provide guidance to both practitioners and future researchers. New Zealand public companies were selected for this study because their directors and shareholders remain open to sharing their views and experiences with external researchers. New Zealand uses a straightforward variant of the common Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model so there is some potential to generalise to other contexts. Developing the foundation for this research required refreshing and extending the extant research concerning aspects of the NZ commercial environment including company ownership and control, shareholder and director demographics, and the underlying commercial environment. Subsequently, a mixed methods approach was adopted for the core study which included conducting focus groups and surveys with both shareholders and directors. Data were also derived from secondary sources including, company annual shareholder meeting minutes, the Companies Office’s records and the social media website Linkedin. The research finds that while both directors’ and shareholders’ expectations of boards are broadly aligned, the expectations that both groups have of boards are heterogeneous in some key respects. Interestingly, the diversity of opinion that appears to exist within each of these groups tends to reflect the diversity that is apparent within the governance literature. Socio-economic factors including the influence of ‘women on boards’ lobby groups and company specific environmental factors such as a company’s financial position were identified as some of the influences which contribute to this diversity of opinion. Environmental factors not only appear to influence the opinions of directors and shareholders but also appear to influence other aspects of corporate governance such as the selection of directors, and the tasks that boards choose to perform. This suggests that a pragmatic rather than a doctrinal basis for this heterogeneity is applicable. So rather than boards adhering to a specific pre-established framework such as ‘shareholder advocate’ or ‘company controller,’ corporate boards appear willing to adjust their objectives and practices to meet the circumstances at hand. For researchers, these findings emphasise the importance of considering contextual factors when designing corporate governance research projects. They also highlight the importance of understanding stakeholder motivations when applying common governance theories. From a policy perspective, the findings reinforce the advantages of the ‘comply or explain’ approach to regulation and they add caution to making local and international best practice guidelines mandatory.</p>

Great Expectations: What shareholders and directors expect from New Zealand public company boards

<p>One of the key roles of corporate boards is to decide how the cash generated by these companies is distributed, and through these decisions they influence the wealth of many in our society. But beyond this task what is expected of corporate boards? Although researchers have spent decades examining boards, a general consensus regarding the objectives and tasks that they should perform has yet to emerge. Using a combination of primary and secondary research, this study examines the expectations that shareholders and directors have of corporate boards in New Zealand and identifies some concordance between their views and some of the extant literature. These findings highlight the contingent nature of corporate governance and provide guidance to both practitioners and future researchers. New Zealand public companies were selected for this study because their directors and shareholders remain open to sharing their views and experiences with external researchers. New Zealand uses a straightforward variant of the common Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model so there is some potential to generalise to other contexts. Developing the foundation for this research required refreshing and extending the extant research concerning aspects of the NZ commercial environment including company ownership and control, shareholder and director demographics, and the underlying commercial environment. Subsequently, a mixed methods approach was adopted for the core study which included conducting focus groups and surveys with both shareholders and directors. Data were also derived from secondary sources including, company annual shareholder meeting minutes, the Companies Office’s records and the social media website Linkedin. The research finds that while both directors’ and shareholders’ expectations of boards are broadly aligned, the expectations that both groups have of boards are heterogeneous in some key respects. Interestingly, the diversity of opinion that appears to exist within each of these groups tends to reflect the diversity that is apparent within the governance literature. Socio-economic factors including the influence of ‘women on boards’ lobby groups and company specific environmental factors such as a company’s financial position were identified as some of the influences which contribute to this diversity of opinion. Environmental factors not only appear to influence the opinions of directors and shareholders but also appear to influence other aspects of corporate governance such as the selection of directors, and the tasks that boards choose to perform. This suggests that a pragmatic rather than a doctrinal basis for this heterogeneity is applicable. So rather than boards adhering to a specific pre-established framework such as ‘shareholder advocate’ or ‘company controller,’ corporate boards appear willing to adjust their objectives and practices to meet the circumstances at hand. For researchers, these findings emphasise the importance of considering contextual factors when designing corporate governance research projects. They also highlight the importance of understanding stakeholder motivations when applying common governance theories. From a policy perspective, the findings reinforce the advantages of the ‘comply or explain’ approach to regulation and they add caution to making local and international best practice guidelines mandatory.</p>

Determinants of Companies’ Board Composition in Emerging Markets

This paper examines the determinants of female board representation for a sample of Brazilian listed companies for the year of 2018. Using count data models, we find that greater firm size, performance and board size lead to higher woman representation on companies’ boards. Also, that private control is associated with a lower number of women on boards. Most studies related to board composition focus on independent directors and are conducted in a developed countries’ setting. This work contributes to the extant literature in understanding what drives woman representation on corporate boards in an emerging market context and also would help to support the definition and implementation of gender diversity policies by showing possible impacts.

The Role of Women on Boards as A Mechanism to Improve Carbon Emission Disclosure and Firm Value

This study investigates the role of women on boards as a mechanism to improve carbon emission disclosure, as a mediating effect influence on firm value. The population includes 122 nonfinancial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2015 to 2019. The results of path analysis reveal that women on boards have a positive and significant effect on carbon emission disclosure, a positive but insignificant effect on firm value, and that carbon emission disclosure is pivotal in mediating women on boards and firm value. This study provides insights that persuade companies to maintain relationships with stakeholders by implementing environmental awareness and disclosing sustainability reports. Carbon emission disclosure as part of the sustainability report is a form of good corporate action in maintaining the balance of living systems on earth. Keywords: women on boards, carbon emissions disclosure, firm value

Women on boards of directors: the moderation role of female labour force participation

Purpose This study aims to investigate the moderation role of the percentage of women in the country labour force in the relationship between firm-level governance factors (board size, institutional ownership, ownership concentration, board independence, performance, firm size, firm’s risk and sector) and women on boards (WOBs) in publicly listed firms in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Design/methodology/approach The study relied on a sample of 436 publicly listed firms in 2018 in six GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). Findings The study concluded that the percentage of women in the country’s labour force has a moderation role in the relationship between board size and WOB, as well as firm market performance and WOBs. However, ownership concentration, firm size, firm risk and firm sector do not affect the percentage of WOB; consequently, the percentage of women in the country’s labour force did not have a moderation role in the relationship between these variables and the percentage of WOBs. Originality/value The study incorporates an institutional level variable which is the percentage of women in the country’s labour force in a firm-level relationship mostly understood by agency theory.