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Given the relevance of female directors in the governance of any firm, this paper aims to examine their effect on firms’ financial performance by investigating their general impact and segregating the same into different subgroups based on Kanter’s theory.

To achieve the purpose, this study selects a sample of the top 100 listed Indian firms for the period of 2014–2018 and gathers the data pertaining to the variables under consideration from the respective firms’ annual report and corporate database Capitaline Plus. For undertaking the investigation, the authors have segregated the sample into three groups, i.e. firms with boards having less than 10% of female directors are called skewed boards; firms with boards having female directors that range from 10% to 20% are called as tilted board; and firms with boards having sizable representation of female directors of above 20%. To examine the performance impact of overall female directors and their different subgroups, the authors have used a generalized estimating equation model. For the robustness test, the authors have used the fixed-effect model.

The authors find a significant positive impact of the overall percentage of female directors on the financial performance of firms. Additionally, the results indicate that boards with a titled group of female directors and boards with a sizable representation of female directors significantly positively impact firms’ performance. However, the authors fail to extricate any significant performance impact of boards with a skewed group of female directors.

First, the study reveals that despite prevailing nepotism in India, female directors, owing to their core characteristics, can create a favorable perception of firms in the market. Second, it also works as an eye-opener for regulators by revealing the minimum threshold for female directors that a board should have to exploit the benefits of a gender quota rather than mere compliance with the requirements of the Companies Act, 2013. Third, it implies that more gender-diverse boards can improve a firm’s financial performance only if female directors range between the thresholds of 10% to 20%. Finally, the finding is significant for changing the business culture in India, where institutions are traditionally less supportive of women than in other emerging countries.

Departing from existing studies, which provide evidence on the performance impact of the overall percentage of female directors, the study unveils the differential impact of female directors on firms’ financial performance depending on their level of representation on the board. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the context of an emerging market to test Kanter’s theory.

This study aims to examine the influence of some prominent corporate governance (CG) mechanisms such as board size (BS), board independence (BI), role duality (RD), board’s gender diversity (GD), ownership concentration (OC), audit committee independence (ACI), nomination and remuneration committee (NRC) and risk management committee (RMC) on voluntary disclosure (VD), as well as different types of VD after controlling the effect of some firm-specific factors for Indian firms.

The study selects market capitalization-based top 100 non-financial and non-utility firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange as on 31st March 2014. Data are drawn from the Capitaline Plus database over the period of 2014–2018. Appropriate panel data regression model is applied to examine the influence of CG on VD.

The study reveals a significant negative influence of BI on VD while GD and RMC exhibit a significant positive influence on the same. The remaining CG mechanisms such as BS, RD, OC, ACI and NRC appear to have no significant influence on VD. Analysis into the relationship between CG mechanisms and different types of VD reveals that BI, in particular, has a strong negative influence on corporate strategic disclosure (CSD) and forward looking disclosure (FWLD) while GD and RMC both exhibit a significant positive influence on CSD, FWLD, CG disclosure and financial and capital market disclosure. Notably, none of the CG mechanisms under consideration influence human and intellectual capital disclosure.

The study considers annual reports as the only medium of making VD and ignores all other sources such as websites and press releases. Besides, it mainly emphasizes on corporate board structure, board committees and OC while other ownership structure-related variables family ownership, managerial ownership are not covered, which can be analysed in future studies.

The study offers some important theoretical, as well as practical connotations for regulators and practitioners operating in India, as well as other emerging economies having similar institutional settings.

The study is the first of its kind in India that examines the influence of various CG mechanisms on different types of VD and thereby contributes novel findings in the context of an emerging economy.

This study investigates the impact of female directors on firms' financial performance by scrutinizing the different roles they are empowered to fulfill.

This study examines the impact of the roles performed by female directors on firms' financial performance using a panel dataset of the top 100 listed Indian firms over a period of 5 years. The study uses an appropriate panel data model for empirical analysis. For the robustness evaluation, a two-stage least square (2SLS) with the instrumental variable model were used.

The findings reveal a significantly positive impact of the total percentage of female directors on firms' financial performance. Further, by disentangling the impact of the total percentage of female directors between independent directors and executive directors, the study shows that independent female directors make a significant positive contribution to their firms' financial performance. By contrast, the performance impact of female executive directors was insignificant. In addition, the findings reveal that firms with a higher proportion of independent female directors outperform firms with a higher percentage of female executive directors.

This study is the first of its kind to unravel the performance impact of female directors and distinguish between the roles of independent directors and executive directors in the context of the emerging market of India, after the imposition of a gender quota for corporate boards.

This study aims to examine the impact of board human capital diversity, measured by educational qualification diversity and gender diversity on the financial performance of Indian firms after controlling corporate governance (CG) and firm-specific variables.

This study is based on a panel data set of top 100 listed Indian firms for a period of five years. The authors use Blau index and Shannon index to compute qualification diversity. The authors use three-stage least square (3SLS) model to deal with the potential endogeneity issue in the association of human capital diversity variables and other CG variables with firm performance. Further, the authors adopt generalized estimating equation (GEE) model for robustness check.

The authors find a significant positive impact of board’s educational diversity as well as gender diversity on the financial performance of firms. Additionally, they extricate highly significant positive interaction impact of board’s educational diversity and gender diversity on the financial performance of firms. Further, the results indicate a significant positive impact of board size, board independence, ownership concentration, family ownership and audit committee independence on firm performance, while CEO duality exhibits a significant negative impact on firm performance.

This study fills the existing gap in literature by extending the performance implications of board’s human capital diversity for top listed Indian firms.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG) voluntary disclosure (VD) and firm valuation (FV). Moreover, the study also investigates whether VD mediates the impact of CG on FV or not.

The study is based on a panel data set of top 100 listed firms on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) over the period of 2014–2018 and develops CG index and VD index (VDI) in order to capture both the constructs respectively. The author adopts suitable panel data model to examine the relationship between CG, VD and FV as well as indirect impact of CG on FV through mediation of VD. Further, the author uses instrumental variables regression model for robustness check.

The author's findings reveal significant positive impact of CG on FV. Likewise, VD also exhibits significant positive impact on FV. Notably, the interaction of CG and VD complements each other in making positive contribution towards FV. In addition, the author observes that VD partially mediates the impact of CG on FV. Specifically, the outcome suggests that CG apart from having direct impact on FV also influences the same through the mediation of VD. Moreover, as the direction of indirect impact coincide with direct impact, such indirect impact has complementary relationship with the direct impact, implying that when CG makes direct contribution towards improving FV, CG's contribution toward FV through mediation of VD also increases.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first endeavor in the extant literature that examines the interaction performance impact of CG and VD. Further, the author also provides primary evidence on the mediating impact of VD in the relationship between CG and FV.

This study investigates the effect of intellectual capital (IC) and its components on the technical efficiency of Indian commercial banks after controlling the influence of bank-specific and macroeconomic variables.

The study selects a sample of 37 listed Indian commercial banks from 2005 to 2019 and uses the two-step data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Banks' technical efficiency scores are first estimated, while the relationship between IC and technical efficiency is examined in the second stage using the panel data Tobit model.

This study's findings suggest a fluctuating trend in the technical efficiency of Indian banks. Notably, from 2015 onwards, a declining technical efficiency trend is observed for all banks. However, private-sector banks outperform public-sector banks in terms of technical efficiency. This study's regression analysis indicates a positive relationship between IC and banks' technical efficiency scores. Further, by decomposing IC into its components like human capital, structural capital and capital employed, the study's findings show that human capital and structural capital enhance banks' technical efficiency. Notably, capital employed reduces technical efficiency. Moreover, bank size, diversification, capitalization, net interest margin and the country's growth rate significantly drive Indian banks' efficiency. In contrast, their operating cost ratio and the country's inflation negatively influence the same.

This study makes a novel endeavor to examine the IC and bank's technical efficiency nexus in the Indian context, encompassing a period of landmark banking reforms.

The rapid global economic development in the last century, led by industrialization, brings environmental issues to the forefront as a serious concern. While some country-specific studies are undertaken to find the effectiveness of different mechanisms for funding environment-friendly projects, to the authors' knowledge, no study has been conducted to examine the impact of green bonds (GBs) on CO2 emissions for a global sample. Against this backdrop, this study examines the general impact of GBs on CO2 emissions and its differential impact for developed and developing countries and country categorizations based on sustainable development.

The study selects a sample of 44 countries from 2016–2020. The authors use trend analysis and box plots to analyze the present GBs and CO2 emissions scenarios. Further, the panel data regression model is used to examine the overall impact of GBs on CO2 emissions and uncover the variation in such relationships regarding country-level economic and sustainable development. Generalized methods of moments (GMM) and instrumental variables (IV) models are used for robustness.

The yearly trend of GBs is upward at the global level, while CO2 emissions exhibit a marginal decline during the study period. However, significant variations are observed in such trends between developed and developing countries and country-level sustainable development. The authors' regression results show that GBs significantly negatively impact CO2 emissions globally. In addition, the effect of GBs on CO2 emissions is strongly negative for developing countries, while the same influence becomes weak for developed nations. Similar variations exist between countries based on sustainable development.

This is the first study in extant literature to examine such a relationship for a global sample of 44 countries. Further, this study makes a novel contribution by analyzing the variations in the GBs-CO2 emissions nexus for developed and developing countries and country-level sustainable development.

This paper aims to examine the impact of gender diversity both at operational and leadership levels on the financial performance of firms in India.

The study is based on a panel data set of 100 large Indian corporate firms. This study uses the Blau index and Shannon index to compute gender diversity. First, this paper uses system generalized method of moments model to deal with the potential endogeneity issue in the association between gender diversity and firm performance. Second, to unveil heterogeneity in such a relationship, the study applies panel data quantile regression model. Finally, the study adopts a generalized estimating equation model to investigate such relationships for group affiliated and standalone firms.

This study finds a significant positive impact of workforce gender diversity and board gender diversity on the financial performance of firms. Further, the results of the quantile regression model indicate that the impact of gender diversity (workforce and board) on firm performance is more pronounced at higher quantiles of the conditional distribution of firm performance. However, the study fails to extricate any significant impact of audit committee gender diversity on firm performance. Finally, the study also finds a significant positive impact of gender diversity at both workforce and board level for a group affiliated, as well as standalone firms.

The present study makes a novel contribution to the extant literature on the association between gender diversity and financial performance of firms by examining such diversity at both operational and leadership levels in the context of an emerging country such as India that captures the complex realities pertaining to gender issues. Further, the study contributes to the empirical literature regarding the heterogeneous impact of gender diversity on firm performance in the Indian context.