Impact of women’s board presence on firm performance: An empirical analysis on the Italian capital market

Abstract

This paper aims to empirically verify if the presence of women on the board of directors produces positive effects on performance results achieved by a sample of listed companies on the Italian stock market. Although many studies have investigated the relationship between women on board and corporate governance effectiveness, research results are inconclusive regarding their impact on corporate performance. After describing the most recent literature review on the topic, this article analyzes a set of board attributes in relation to the presence of women on the board for 26 Italian-listed companies for 2019 years. The empirical results show a positive correlation between the share of women on the board of directors and sampled companies’ performance. This result is consistent what has been shown by recent corporate literature (Gupta et al., 2023; EmadEldeen et al., 2021; Magnanelli et al., 2021; Song et al., 2020). Therefore, the results confirm the importance of women’s presence on the board of directors in influencing the financial performance of companies. This research, therefore, helps provide corporate governance guidance for board members, and professionals looking to refine strong performance.