How Does The Capital Market Respond To Diversity Management? Lessons From The U.S. Firms’ Valuation With Respect To Their LGBT Policies

Purpose - This study starts with the question of whether the capital market is likely to give positive valuations to companies that pursue diversity in their management and corporate governance structure. In this study, minority gender identity is considered as a diversity issue in management that has a socially negative perception. Design/methodology/approach - This study analyzed the relationship between corporate value in the capital market and the policies of companies that advocated minority gender identities, based on listed U.S. company data. Findings - This study finds that companies that support minority gender identities had a lower Tobin’s q value than companies that did not. However, in the case of authenticity in terms of corporate governance diversity, the study finds that companies that advocate minority gender identities rather receive high firm valuation. In particular, companies with a high percentage of female directors show high corporate value even when implementing policies that support minority gender identities. Research implications or Originality - This study explores the capital market’s response to diversity using past data in the U.S., but provides more practical implications for how companies should respond to a situation where an advocacy policy, based on more social recognition, for LGBT groups is established in Korea.