Purpose -The current study investigates the effects of several corporate governance characteristics and gender diversity facets on the dividends decision. Moreover, the moderating effect of ESG has been scrutinized on the relationship between board characteristics and gender diversity with dividends decision. Design/methodology/approach -Logistic regression model has been utilized on a sample of 120 EGX listed companies between 2012 and 2019. The non-board data that has been collected from DataStream, the board information has been gathered based on the financial statements and websites of the companies. Findings -The results of the study demonstrated a substantial positive relationship between gender diversity and dividends decision. Additionally, the association between gender diversity and dividend decision is moderated by ESG. Furthermore, the decision to declare a dividend is significantly positively correlated with the board's size, but negatively correlated with the board's independence. Moreover, neither the relationship between board size nor board independence on dividends decision is significantly moderated by ESG. Originality/value -Results hold up well to determine the imperative role of board characteristics and more specifically the gender diversity in dividend decision-making and on ESG. They thus offer compelling evidence in favor of the significance of sustainability in dividends decision.

This study aims at filling the existing research gap by scrutinizing the influence of females on management boards on sustainability performance in a developing country using cross-sectional data from the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) of non-financial companies over the period 2012–2019. To the best of our knowledge, the analysis is considered one of the earliest empirical studies that tests the relationship of females on management board and sustainability performance in Egypt. Our results indicate that female representation on board has a positive impact on sustainability performance, which demonstrates that companies that have females on their boards have a better sustainability performance. Moreover, board size and independence enhance sustainability performance. Thus, this study has imperative repercussions on users and companies’ boards in Egypt, which recommend that current Egyptian regulatory bodies would take further steps that may significantly impact the environmental, social and corporate governance imminent in Egypt

This paper examines the impact of gender board diversity on firm performance for companies registered on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The data has been collected from a unique set of 644 financial companies in the Main (MAIN) market and Alternative Investment Market (AIM) for the period 1999–2016. The firm performance has been measured using return on equity (ROE) and Tobin’s Q. The main independent variable is the female board diversity, which was distinguished into executive and non-executive females. In the MAIN market, the executive female directors negatively affect the firm’s financial performance; however, the non-executive female directors positively impact the firm’s financial performance. Furthermore, the positive effect of non-executive female directors in the bad market is higher than in the good market. Whereas the negative effect of the executive female directors in the bad market is lower than in the good market. To the best of our knowledge, this paper contributes to the corporate governance literature in two folds. First, this paper explores the effect of executive and non-executive female directors on the board on the firm performance. Second, the paper also scrutinizes such associations in two different regimes of the financial market.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the influence of sustainability especially the environmental pillar and corporate board diversity on the financial performance in emerging markets. This study examines the effect of sustainability and board composition on firm performance. The sample of this study comprises 1382 firms with a total of 19199 firm-year observations covering a period from 2008 to 2021. These firms are listed in the MSCI emerging markets index representing 24 emerging countries. The results show that the main index of sustainability (ESG index) and other sub-indices (environmental score, emission score and CO2 equivalent emission) of sustainability that are used as measures of climate change have an effect on accounting-based performance (return on assets, ROA) and market-based performance (Tobin’s Q and book-to-market value, BTMV). Also, the results show that age, nationality and education as board diversity components affect the firm performance; however, the female directors on the board did not affect the firm performance.