The Effect of Corporate Gender Diversity on Board and Firm Performance

Abstract

Effective and qualitative corporate governance is the distinctive feature of newly emerging economy. Corporate governance has received significant attention due to global financial crisis and recent corporate failures involving multinational corporations all over the world. As the global economic system is changing, the corporate governance mechanisms are becoming essential determinants of companies current and future performance. Gender diversity and corporate performance have a strong association which entirely relies on effective board management. Therefore, the basic assumption is that appropriate gender diversity within the board will improved board effectiveness which in turn affect the firm performance. The major objective of this study is to examines the effects of board gender diversity on board and the firm performance. The study describes an extant research on theoretical and empirical perspectives with emphasis on the impact of women directors on corporate boards and firm performance. The study used secondary source as a method of data collections. The findings from the studies provides different outcomes; while some authors believe board gender diversity improve the level of firm performance, Others empirical studies discovered no any relationship between board gender diversity and firm financial performance. However, others were neutral by reporting neither positive nor negative relationship between gender diversity and firm performance. Furthermore, with respect to theoretical perspective, the study discover that both the agency theory and resource dependency theory only suggest the link between board gender diversity and firm performance, yet the real nature of the link remain unclear.