The paper aims to examine the moderating role of gender diversity within a corporate board on the relationship between tax aggressiveness and a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach. This analysis was conducted using a set of indicators of financial statements of 168 Italian listed firms between 2011 and 2018. In addition, the sustainability reports of the same companies were observed. To perform the analysis a logit regression model is used. This paper shows different empirical results. First, this study notes that there is not a direct relationship between tax aggressiveness and CSR reporting. Second, gender diversity in a board of directors increases the orientation of companies to CSR disclosure, but does not have an impact on the relationship between tax aggressiveness and CSR disclosure. Instead, CEO gender has a positive influence on the relationship between corporate tax planning and CSR reporting in accordance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. This study emphasizes the key role of gender diversity in the growth of the CSR approach and the reputation of companies. Therefore, governments and policymakers of major countries should promote gender diversity in corporate decision-making bodies, which contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of corporate governance mechanisms, namely, board of directors and auditors, on tax aggressiveness in Italian companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. Design/methodology/approach This study used a population of 168 Italian non-financial firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, holding shares in at least one foreign subsidiary in countries other than Italy in fiscal year 2018. Data on corporate boards and auditors were collected through the evaluation of companies’ annual reports over the period 2011–2018. Five panel data analyses with fixed effects were performed for each tax aggressiveness index, yielding 1,176 observations to test the research hypothesis. Findings This paper finds that corporate board characteristics, such as size, gender diversity and CEO duality, and auditors’ features, such as external audit quality, increase corporate tax aggressiveness. Practical implications This study provides investors with an understanding of corporate boards’ and auditors’ roles in preventing agency conflicts and evaluating a company’s tax approach. Furthermore, the findings are useful for international political bodies in regulating corporate board composition and managerial monitoring. Originality/value Almost all studies focusing primarily on corporate governance mechanisms’ effects on tax aggressiveness are within the US context. Empirical evidence on the topic in the European contexts is limited. The legislative discrepancy between countries is reflected in the computation of indices measuring tax aggressiveness, affecting US studies' generalizability across nations. This paper extends the literature on the topic by investigating other unexplored corporate governance mechanisms. Five indices were used to measure corporate tax aggressiveness and to assess analysis reliability and data robustness. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to investigate the link between corporate governance mechanisms and tax aggressiveness in Italy.

This paper investigates the role of a different composition of board of directors on firm’s performance. The study is based on the analysis of 149 Italian listed firms over the 2011-2017 period. Our regression results show that size board, gender diversity, independent directors and CEO gender have a significant effect on firm’s performance. This analysis uses as measure of firm’s performance two accounting-based measures ROE and ROA and one market-based measure TobinQ. The study shows that gender diversity, independent directors and CEO gender are associated positively respectively with ROE, ROA and TobinQ, while size board is negatively associated with ROE and TobinQ.