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This paper aims to examine empirically the impact of gender diversity on corporate performance by both comparing different positions occupied by female directors on the boards and their personal-specific characteristics.

The paper examines a sample of Italian listed companies during 2006–2015. To deal with endogeneity issues, the authors use a generalized method of moments as an empirical methodology.

The empirical findings show that the positive effect of both independent and executive women directors on firm performance is moderated by the specific characteristics of female directors. Specifically, the analyses show that foreign and busy females negatively impact on performance. Conversely, graduate female directors strengthen the positive link between executive women and firm performance.

The paper sheds light on the consequences of appointing different types of female directors (i.e. independent, executive, graduate, foreign and busy) on firm performance. Our empirical research that investigates the association between gender diversity and performance in the Italian context based on a longitudinal study, which involves a period of ten years, allowing consideration both of the years before and after the introduction of the gender quota law (Golfo–Mosca law).

This paper examines the relationship between women on boards and board monitoring tasks depending on group categories identified in the Kanter's theory.

Using a sample of the largest listed companies in Spain, Italy and France during the period 2007–2017, this study tests the effect of women's presence based on the following board categories: (1) skewed boards with a percentage of women that is less than 20%; (2) tilted boards with a percentage of women that ranges from 20% to 33%; (3) tilted boards with a percentage of women that is more than 33%; and (4) balanced boards with an equal or quasi-equal gender distribution. The authors use the case of the gender board quota regulation in different European Union countries.

The results suggest that tilted boards engage in stronger firm monitoring and that the effect of women on board monitoring tasks is positive and statistically significant when the percentage of female directors reaches the threshold of 33%.

The outcomes of this study help policymakers identify the minimum threshold that quota regulations should mandate in order for boards to be effective.

This paper moves forward the ongoing debate about the effect of women on corporate boards, shifting the focus from the ratio or presence of female directors to the size of the group they form within the board. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to test Kanter's theory by investigating the relationship between women on boards and board monitoring.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of a non-sanction “soft” gender quota policy structure (a simple recommendation), using the case of Spain. In the first part of the paper, the authors have reported the dismal improvement regarding the increase of female percentage presence in the companies’ boards of members.

The authors provide a detailed sectorial analysis and a classification of board members by type (executive, proprietary, independent and other external). In the second part, the authors exploit the fact that since 2013, the stock-listed companies are legally obliged to respond to a series of questions on gender diversity issues in their annual reports. Using this requirement, the authors perform an analysis using text processing techniques. The authors find that “self-plagiarism” is common in the responses – i.e. they copy responses from previous years – as well as “plagiarism” – i.e. they copy responses from other companies in previous years.

The insufficient progress in respect to the goals of the Law of Equality of 2007 (enacted by Spanish authorities) and the lack of interest that can be inferred from the companies’ responses included in their annual reports lead the authors to consider the necessity of changing the law on the corporate policies gender quotas in Spain.

It is the first study that realizes this type of analysis for Spain.

This paper aims to demonstrate gender diversity in the structure of corporate governance and test the effect of diversity on the firm performance suffering from financial distress.

The paper is quantitative using a sample of 467 public firms in Indonesia. Data were analyzed into statistics descriptive and the hypothesis was tested using the test of logistic regression.

The preliminary results of the paper demonstrate the number of firms employing women and men in the structure of corporate governance of 13% on the commissioner board, 7% on the director board and 5% on the audit committee. Based on the test of effect, this paper further found that firms employing women and men (gender diversity) in the structure of the board of commissioners, tend to suffer from financial distress lower than firms only employing men (non-gender diversity).

This paper is not an effort to make the proportion of voices of women equal to men, however the representation of women at least exists in the structure of corporate governance as part of workforce diversity and inclusivity. In addition, this paper is considered not to use panel data with the purpose of avoiding repetitive data because of the use of a nominal scale in the logistic regression model.

The finding of the paper is addressed to deliver insights into the current conversation on the issue of women's day with the theme of Each for Equal and to firms in positioning women in the structure of boardrooms.

This paper extends the limited scholarly work on the nexus between gender diversity and financial performance. The framework of social identity theory and the tenet of corporate governance are elaborated to disclose the finding that firm shareholders tend to benefit from gender diversity in the structure of the commissioner board.

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the relationship between the governance structure of universities and the universities' knowledge transfer (KT) performance outcomes measured in terms of university spin-off firms university spin-offs (USOs).

The universities' board of directors has been analyzed under three profiles: the incidence of internal directors belonging to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) faculties, the incidence of women directors and the incidence of external directors.

The findings provide evidence of a significant and positive association, for southern Italian state universities, of the presence of university STEM directors and the establishment of university spin-offs (USOs).

The article is original as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study, except for the paper by Meoli et al. (2019), examined the governance of universities in relation to the establishment of academic spin-offs.

This study aims to examine whether and how gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with voluntary nonfinancial disclosures, particularly water disclosures.

This study uses corporate water information disclosure data from Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2018 to conduct regression analyses to examine the association between female directors and water information disclosure.

Empirical results show that female directors have a significantly positive association with corporate water information disclosure. Additionally, internal industry water sensitivity of firms moderates this significant relationship.

This study determined that female directors can promote not only water disclosure but also positive corporate water performance, reflecting the consistency of words and deeds of female directors in voluntary nonfinancial disclosures.

Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.

This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.

This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.

This study aims to explore the impact of board size, board gender diversity and federation age on the likelihood of having a female chair in National Sports Federations (NSF).

A quantitative methodology compares 300 sports boards in five countries (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK), using data collected from NSF’s websites.

The board size and federation age have no significant impact on having a female board chair when the countries and the percentage of female directors are included in the model. When the number of women is measured in absolute value rather than in relative terms, the only variable that predicts a woman chair is the country. When the model does not include country differences, the percentage of female directors is key in predicting a chairwoman, and when the number of women is used as a variable instead of the percentage, a board’s smaller size increases the odds of having a chairwoman.

There are some limitations to this study which we believe provide useful directions for future research. Firstly, the authors have not considered the role of gender typing in sports activities which explains the extent that women participate in specific sports (Sobal and Milgrim, 2019) and the related perception of such sports in society. The social representation of sports activities classified as masculine, feminine or gender-neutral can hypothetically influence women’s access to that specific federations’s leadership. The authors included the country factor only partially, as a control variable, as the social representation of sports usually goes beyond national boundaries.

This study has implications for sport policymakers and stakeholders, and for institutions such as the IOC or the European Union that implement equality policies. If the aim is to increase female presence in the highest position of a sports board and to achieve gender equality more generally, other policies need to be implemented alongside gender quotas for the sports boards, namely, those specifically related to the recruitment and selection of the sports board chairs (Mikkonen et al., 2021). For example, given the implications of critical mass and its ability to increase more female’s engagement then the role of existing chairs acting as mentors and taking initiative in this objective may be warranted. Furthermore, attention should be paid to the existing gender portfolio of each board and its subsequent influence on recruiting a female chair, regardless of the organization’s age. Knoppers et al. (2021) concluded that resistance to gender balance by board members is often related to discriminatory discourses against women. The normalization of the discourses of meritocracy, neoliberalism, silence/passivity about the responsibility of structures and an artificial defence of diversity emphasise that equality should not only be determined by women (Knoppers et al., 2021).

When countries are included in the model, the results suggest that the social representation of a female board member is different from that of a female board chair.

The originality of the study is that it shows the factors that constrain women taking up a chair position on NSFs. Theoretically, it contributes to existing literature by demonstrating how a critical mass of females on boards may also extend to the higher and most powerful position of chair.

The European Union (EU) has recently adopted gender quotas for corporate boards (CBQ), anticipating ripple effects on women’s careers in the companies concerned, as well as throughout the economy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether CBQ has spurred ripple effects and discuss mechanisms hindering or facilitating women’s occupancy of top executive positions.

Norway was the first country in the world to introduce CBQ in 2003, with full effect from 2008. The policy requires company boards to be composed of 40% of each gender. Drawing on original data mapping boards and executive committees in Norway’s 200 largest companies, the authors analyze the association between CBQ and the gender composition of executive management almost 15 years after the full implementation. The data include both companies covered by the CBQ and large companies not covered.

The investigation does not find a positive association between CBQ and more women in executive positions. Thus, the ripple effect hypothesis of CBQ is not supported. CBQ may have contributed to an increased awareness of gender imbalances, yet these findings indicate that to achieve more gender balance in executive positions, scholars and practitioners may need to focus more on gendered conditions and processes in organizations and society throughout executive careers than on the gender composition of boards.

This paper provides empirical analyses of original data 15 years after the implementation of CBQ. The authors further contribute to scholarly debate by identifying and discussing possible mechanisms that explain how requiring more women on corporate boards may – or may not – have ripple effects on executive management.

This paper aims to analyze the influence of gender diversity on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate governance (CG) and economic and financial performance of Brazilian publicly traded companies.

The sample comprises 68 non-financial public companies comprising the IBX100 index of BM&FBOVESPA. For that, it was used panel data modeling, correlation and ranking by TOPSIS method.

The results suggest a significant relationship between CG and economic–financial performance when mediated by gender diversity. This relationship was not observed between CSR and economic–financial performance. Thus, it can be concluded that in a diversified board of directors, in terms of gender, better monitoring of managers can occur because of the increase in their independence in decisions, as well as performance increase. These results diverge from the literature on the influence of women’s participation in corporate boards in CSR. It is assumed that this result is because of the fact that the participation of women is recent in Brazil.

The main limitations are the number of companies analyzed, the choice of ISE index to verify the CSR variable and the metric used to verify the CG mechanisms.

In general, this research contributes to the literature of the area, especially in Brazil, in confirming that the mediating variable gender diversity makes the relationship between CG and performance more significant.