In recent years, regulators have introduced gender diversity quota laws and dis-closure-based approaches to increase the representation of women on corporate boards. These developments have set off a global discussion about the importance of diversity in the boardroom and what role governments...

We examine the link between age diversity on boards of directors and corporate misconduct. We find firms with age-diverse boards to be associated with significantly less corporate misconduct – both in terms of the number of violations and the fines paid. This finding is robust to various...

The paper examines demographic and cognitive diversity at top-level management and its impact on the performance of Malaysian-listed companies (Plantation and Energy Sectors). Although many organisations aspire to be socially diverse, diversity’s consequences for organisational performance...

In this research study, we seek to examine whether US public companies with gender diverse boards report better long-term, non-financial and financial performance. Using observations from 2003 to 2012, we find that gender diversity on corporate boards has a more positive impact on a firm’s...

Purpose: We investigate the association among trustee board diversity (TBD), corporate governance (CG), capital structure (CS) and financial performance (FP) using a sample of UK charities. Specifically, we investigate the effect of TBD on CS, and ascertain whether CG quality moderates the...

The role of the nomination committee (NC) in the selection of members of various ethnic groups for board membership has increased significantly as a result of the global financial crisis of 2008. A company board that comprises directors who come from all the three major ethnic groups (Malay,...

We examine the impact of cultural diversity in corporate boards on a firm's corporate social performance. Using a novel approach to identify a director's cultural roots based on ancestry, we estimate the degree of cultural diversity at the board level. We find that board cultural diversity is...

We document that the cross-sectional variation in CEO pay levels has declined precipitously, both at the economy level and within industry and size groups. We find evidence consistent with one explanation; reciprocal benchmarking (i.e., firms including each other in the set of peers used to...

There has been a broad push in recent years to increase diversity at the board and CEO levels of public corporations. Despite this effort, diversity on boards and in senior leadership positions has not reached the levels to which advocates aspire. We provide new insight into this topic by...

We proxy for board members' opinions and values using directors' ancestral origins and show that diversity has costs and benefits, which lead to high performance volatility. Consistent with the idea that diverse groups experiment more, firms with ancestrally diverse boards have more numerous and...