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We examine the relationship between board demographic diversity, board structural diversity, board capital diversity and corporate carbon performance (CCP). Additionally, we investigate how corporate sustainable resource use mediates these relationships.

We utilize unbalanced panel data from Refinitiv Eikon covering 9,960 global firms from 2002 to 2022. We conduct a panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between board demographic diversity, board structural diversity, board capital diversity and CCP. In addition, we estimate entropy balancing estimation and two-step system GMM to address endogeneity issues.

The results indicate that board demographic diversity (including tenure, gender, and cultural diversity), structural diversity (such as board independence, board size, CEO-chairman duality, board meetings, and board compensation), and capital diversity (comprising board member affiliation and specific skills) all have a positive and significant association with corporate carbon performance. Additionally, our findings reveal that corporate sustainable resource use fully mediates the relationship between board demographic diversity and CCP and partially mediates the relationship between board structural diversity, board capital diversity, and CCP.

Our study findings are based on a diverse range of global firms, ensuring that the results address the global challenges of firm-level climate change response and governance issues.

Our group diversity constructs offer new insights into the literature and further advance research on board group diversity. Additionally, for the first time, we explore the mediating role of sustainable resource use through the resource-based view (RBV) between-group diversity attributes and corporate carbon performance.

The materiality principle is one of the top trends in sustainability reporting globally. Stakeholders have focused on the principle of materiality because of its vital importance in the context of sustainability. Materiality serves as a content-selection principle for determining the most significant sustainability matters to be included in sustainability reports. This has made reports more relevant for various stakeholders. Using the resource-based view and stakeholder theory, this paper aims to examine and uncover the antecedents and outcome of materiality disclosure in sustainability reporting.

To measure the extent of materiality disclosure, a content analysis was performed on the corporate reports of the largest listed companies in Malaysia. The relationships among the variables under investigation were examined using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

While the results show that board activity, board independence and board size play significant roles as antecedents of materiality disclosure, this is not so with nationality diversity and gender diversity. In addition, the results have shown that the outcome of materiality disclosure is not significantly linked to corporate financial performance. The results show that normative stakeholder considerations are the primary motivating factor behind corporate sustainability reporting in Malaysia.

These results are of great interest to regulators, stakeholders, investors and companies alike. Enhancing materiality disclosure in sustainability reports can help in the transition to sustainable development and the successful achievement of the United Nations sustainable development goals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to examine the interplay between board diversity and materiality disclosure, along with their connections to corporate financial performance.

Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

Poland generally has a homogeneous society, conservative towards changes and diversity. The corporate culture in Polish companies reflects this mindset, leading to a lack of inclusion on the corporate board. Additionally, many companies may not fully understand the benefits of an inclusive workplace and legal requirements for gender diversity.

The main objective of the study is to provide a better understanding of the attitude of Polish companies towards diversity policies and reveal differences in actual and expected levels of gender diversity in corporate boards. Thus, we examine compliance with the gender diversity guidelines in the corporate governance code.

Using a sample of 367 Polish companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, we study the composition of the management and supervisory boards to check if they meet the expected gender diversity criteria. We also look at companies' explanations for non-compliance with the main principles regarding diversity policy.

We find that the current composition of corporate boards of stock companies in Poland is male-dominated. Women represent only 12.72% and 17.12% of the management board and supervisory board members, respectively, and 68.94% (42.23%) of companies have no women on their management (supervisory) board. Moreover, only a small percentage of companies comply with the principles related to gender diversity. Qualifications, experience and education are pointed out as the most important criteria for decision-making on board appointments, with only 2% of companies applying gender as an additional criterion. The study suggests that larger companies are more likely to implement diversity policies.

Board diversity positively impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR); however, there is limited evidence on how board diversity affects the reputation of organizations that are involved in CSR. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect board diversity has on socially responsible firms’ corporate social responsibility reputation (CSRR). The authors specifically examine this relationship because an organization’s corporate reputation may be very different to its CSRR gained through engagement in socially responsible activities.

The authors use the CSR reputation scores for the top 100 most socially responsible global companies provided by the RepTrak Database as a measure of CSRR. Board diversity measures are calculated for gender, ethnicity and education to measure their impact on social reputation. The sample for this study consists of 146 observations for the period 2013–2017.

The authors find a significant and positive relation between having a combination of women and ethnically diverse members on the board and firms’ CSRR. The authors also find a significant positive effect on CSRR when the board is composed of women and educationally diverse members.

Board diversity characteristics continue to impact organizations’ decision-making processes and their involvement in CSR activities as public stakeholders demand greater representation of females and minorities on the board. Because research on board diversity is in its infancy, the authors urge scholars to continue to investigate the impact board diversity has on an organization’s motivation to be socially responsible as well as how it affects their CSRR.

The findings of this study highlight the importance stakeholders place on an organization’s social responsibility reputation and the positive effects of board diversity in managing their CSRR.

The findings provide evidence that the composition of the board can influence a company’s engagement in CSR activities and their CSRR as perceived by its stakeholders.

This study contributes to the CSR literature by introducing the concept of CSRR. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study also extends research in the diversity literature by examining the relationship between board diversity variables and an organization’s CSRR. The findings highlight the importance of having a diverse board composed of ethnically and educationally varied individuals and provide evidence of a link between organizations’ involvement in socially responsible activities and their CSRR.

This study aims to examine the determinants of the female representations on Chinese listed firm’s boards. This study also investigates the effect of gender diversity on corporate social responsibility activities.

The Tobit regression model is used because the data is censored and using ordinary least square regression can give spurious results. For robust check, the authors also used Heckman’s (1979) two-stage self-selection model to remove the sample self-selection bias.

The authors find that the female representations on the corporate board are positively associated with firm age, firm performance, corporate governance, family ownership, institutional ownership and managerial ownership while negatively related to firm size and state ownership. This study also incorporates predictors of the critical mass of women on the Chinese listed firm’s board. The study also tests the female-led hypothesis and concludes that the female representation increases in firms with female chief executive officer (CEO) or female chairpersons. The Chinese listed firms with gender-diverse board are socially responsible.

The importance of diversity in corporate boards has been demonstrated in light of the agency theory and the resource dependence framework. The results contribute to the previous literature by documenting the determinants of female representations on board, robust by alternative measures of gender diversity, firm size, corporate governance and estimation techniques.

The economic significance of gender diversity stirred the firms to increase female representation. The policymakers can understand the reasons for female underrepresentation in Chinese boards and can reform the regulation to enhance governance quality, non-state ownership and risk aversion among the listed firms.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the key predictor of the world’s largest emerging economy, specifically the study focuses on the firm specific determinants, different governance attributes, ownership structure and firm risk measures. This study also seeks to answer if the presence of a female in the Chairperson or CEO position encourages the firms to hire more female directors or not?

The purpose of this study shows how overall board diversity influences corporate risk-taking. Board diversity is quantified into task-oriented diversity (tenure and education) and relation-oriented diversity (age and gender). Further, this study tests whether the association of board diversity and corporate risk varies across state-owned firms (SOEs) and non-state-owned firms (NSOEs).

The authors used a sample of Chinese listed firms over the period 1999-2017. The results are estimated using the fixed-effects model. To deal with the endogeneity problem and single model bias, the authors use a dynamic model, i.e. two-step generalized method of moment’s model.

The results show that both task-oriented and relation-oriented diversity reduces corporate risk. Further, the authors document that overall board diversity reduces risk-taking across different types of firms, that is, SOEs and NSOEs. These results are consistent after controlling for endogeneity problems.

The results provide implications for enhancing corporate governance practices by considering overall board diversity as an important factor influencing corporate decisions. The findings suggest that policymakers and shareholders should consider different diversity attributes important for the composition of a board, which can enhance board outcomes.

Most of the prior studies considered only one dimension of diversity, and therefore, have overlooked the overall board diversity. Unlike prior studies, this study considers four board diversity attributes – age, gender, tenure and education, and further tests their association with corporate risk. Further, this study also examines the effect of overall diversity on corporate risk in SOEs and NSOEs.

Drawing on the multi-theoretical perspective, the primary purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the inextricably entwined nexus between board gender diversity and corporate environmental performance within cross-country context.

Multiple regression analysis on a cross-country panel data analysis was used. Further, the authors applied static panel data estimator ordinary least squares (OLS) as a baseline model with different proxies of gender diversity. In addition, to control for the potential endogeneity problem and providing robust findings, the authors run two-stage least squares (2SLS) and lagged independent variables.

The findings clearly unveiled that corporate environmental performance is positively and significantly affected by the level of gender diversity on board. This inextricable and intimate nexus is vastly attributed to the argument that female directors show greater concerns for eco-friendly activities.

The findings of this study provide useful and fruitful insights for regulatory parties and policymakers to mandate gender quota in electing boardroom members to ameliorate corporate environmental performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the prior studies have not yet provided a multi-theoretical analysis of the effect of board gender diversity on environmental performance. Thereby, this study handled this contemporary gap and went beyond the narrow perspectives by diving deep with cross-country analysis.

This paper examines contextual factors that affect the association between board gender diversity and firm performance.

The authors use a global sample of listed firms in the tourism industry in 30 countries from 2015 to 2020.

First, firm performance is positively associated with the proportion of female directors on a board. Second, the positive association between firm performance and the proportion of female directors on the board is higher in (1) countries with stronger shareholder rights, (2) countries with stronger securities law regulation stipulating disclosure of board diversity, (3) countries with stronger economic empowerment of women, and (4) during the COVID-19 crisis. Third, corporate financial distress risk is lower in firms with higher proportion of female directors on the board. Fourth, the negative association between corporate financial distress risk and the proportion of female directors on the board is more pronounced in (1) countries with stronger securities law regulations stipulating disclosure of board gender diversity, (2) countries with stronger economic empowerment of women, and (3) during the COVID-19 crisis.

The results indicate that contextual factors (comprising country-level corporate governance structures, economic empowerment of women and economic crisis) can affect the association between board gender diversity and firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ethnic diversity on corporate boards and audit fees in the context of South Africa. Additionally, this paper investigates how the interaction between board ethnicity and board independence affects audit fees.

This study uses a quantitative research method with a panel data analysis to test proposed hypotheses. This study’s sample consist of listed firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2003 to 2018.

This study finds that firms with more Black directors on corporate board have higher audit fees. It also shows that the positive relation between board independence and audit fees is more pronounced for firms with greater ethnic diversity on corporate boards. Further, this study finds that the presence of Black directors on corporate board can increase board effectiveness. Lastly, firms with more Black directors on corporate board tend to be audited by Big N auditors. The findings of this study illustrate the implication of an equity narrative to board diversity for organisational outcome.

The results reported in this paper have both practical and policy implications regarding the presence of ethnic diversity on corporate boards. The findings also suggest that there is a need to establish an appropriate balance of ethnic diversity on corporate boards as part of regulatory reform. Regulators should be aware of the positive impacts of the requirement for board diversity on corporate boards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine whether the presence of Black directors on corporate boards affects audit fees. It also investigates the interaction effects between the presence of Black directors on the board and board independence.