Search results

This study aims to contribute to the debate on the relationship between board diversity and performance, a hot topic for scholars and shareholders. A number of studies have found contrasting impacts of board diversity on firm performance and this paper adds new and original evidence in the context of the automotive supply chain focusing on gender, age and nationality diversity.

The authors propose a triple stage empirical analysis. First, the authors use linear models according to different performance indexes for investigating diversity (gender, age and nationality) within the board of directors and executives. Second, the authors investigate the issue of diversity in different contexts such as position in the supply chain, nationality of the owner and family/corporate ownership. Finally, the authors use non-linear models to find a better combination of diversity in terms of gender and nationality for retrieving some managerial implications.

First, the authors demonstrate a robust positive effect of women in board representation on firm performance in terms of profitability and firm risk. In the case of, age and nationality the results are more equivocal in particular for the former. Second, the authors depict board diversity in different contexts as follows: positioning in the supply chain, type and nationality of the final owner. Again, gender heterogeneity is more adequate in the complex firm as Tier 1 suppliers, corporate and foreign company.

The authors focused the analysis on a specific industry, shedding light on the main specificities linked to operating in certain phases of the supply chain, a substantial novelty in this field. The empirical evidence is based on a very large data set containing quantitative and qualitative information on a representative sample of 1,538 firms operating in the Italian automotive supply chain, one of the most relevant in Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of firms’ survival during crisis in the Italian automotive value chain.

The authors propose a survival analysis, based on a dichotomic model, in which supply chain features, technical efficiency (TE) and ratings are included as explanatory variables with other controls.

TE and financial health positively influence survival. Some supply chain variables are significant such as direct supply, geographical location and outsourcing level, whereas the proximity to the national carmaker is insignificant.

The main limitation of the study is the lack of qualitative data related to supply management practice in the automotive industry.

The study combine supply chain aspects with firms’ survival, TE and financial ratings.