A substantial literature has studied how increased diversity in terms of gender, age, education, and race amongst members of firms' boards affects decisions and performance. This paper studies whether ideological diversity in the boardroom affects firm performance. We find that whilst a board...

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...

We investigate whether diversity in points of view in corporate boards, as captured by the diversity in political ideology of board members, can affect a firm's performance. We employ personal political contributions' data to measure political ideology distance among groups of inside, outside...

We examine how boardroom gender diversity reforms impact the monitoring role of institutional investors. Using reforms from 25 countries that aim to improve gender diversity on boards, we find that the reforms increase the association between institutional ownership and subsequent female...

An optimum composition of the board of directors is often considered as an effective approach for achieving robust corporate governance. Broadly, the board of directors exercises four critical roles: “advice and counsel, channels of information flow, preferential access to resources, and...

Since my books on the role of women appeared, in 2007 and in 2010, the participation by women in corporate governance has become a front page issue in many European nations, including Norway, Spain, and France, which have adopted quota laws, and in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, which may...

This study focuses on whether regulation as well as national cultures play significant roles in defining women’s role in society. We are contributing to the existing debate by providing the first empirical analysis to calibrate which legal mechanisms and cultural dimensions are more efficient...

Purpose – As pressures mount for women directors on corporate boards (WDOCB) from different stakeholders, companies become more interested in finding out how WDOCB impact sustainability disclosure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of gender diverse boards on the...

Board room quotas have recently received an increasing amount of attention. This paper provides novel evidence on firm performance from an exogenous change in female board participation in Sweden. We use the credible threat, aimed at listed firms, of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy...

This paper investigates whether female independent directors are more likely to impose high dividend payouts. We find evidence that firms with a larger fraction of female directors on their board have greater dividend payouts. This finding is robust to alternative econometric specifications, and...