Female directors and gender issues reporting: The impact of stakeholder engagement at country level

Abstract

Recent studies have investigated how women on boards impact corporate social responsibility reporting, a voluntary strategy clearly influenced by board composition in general and gender diversity in particular. However, this research goes further and proposes to provide evidence about how female directors influence gender issues reporting. Moreover, this research also examines the moderating effect between gender diversity on boards and country-level factors related to stakeholder orientation. For an international sample of 8,609 firm-year observations from 2007 to 2016 and by regressing several logit models for panel data, it was found that female directors increase the probability of voluntary reporting on gender issues. Moreover, the findings also suggest that institutional forces related to stakeholder pressures reinforce this effect; the greater reporting on gender issues that female directors achieve is even higher when firms are located in stakeholder-oriented countries.

Stakeholder engagement is evolving: Do investors play a main role?

“…Our findings are in line with those that highlight the effect of the institutional context on the quality of disclosure, for instance, Ferri (2017) when analyzing data from Italy, Brazil, and the United States (Ferri, 2017), or El‐Bassiouny and El‐Bassiouny (2019), dealing with Egypt, Germany, and the U.S. data. This result is also reported by García‐Sánchez et al (2020) when analyzing board gender issues. The increasing in the quality of the sustainability reports from quoted companies can be explained by the effect of the U.S. SEC policy to requiring more social and environmental disclosure (Crawford & Williams, 2010).…”

“…DiMaggio and Powell (1983) identify three types of institutional isomorphism to explain aligned practices such as sustainability reporting, in different companies: coercive, normative, and mimetic. Even though the mimetic one has replaced the others (García‐Sánchez, Oliveira, & Martínez‐Ferrero, 2020), each type provides a different rationale for companies' behavior that affects the quality of their sustainability communication strategy.…”

Do independent, female and specialist directors promote eco‐innovation and eco‐design in agri‐food firms?

“…Both strategies favour a company's differentiation from its competitors, which can lead to increases in business profitability resulting from new sales revenue and higher productivity as well as improvements in the image and reputation of the company as a consequence of its level of environmental responsibility (Doran & Ryan, 2016; Liao, 2018). In contrast, the paper by García‐Sánchez, Martínez‐Ferrero and Colares Oliveira (2020) show that eco‐innovation and eco‐design strategies do not generate higher returns, although they are valued by the capital market.…”

“…Taking into account the negative effect of eco‐innovation and eco‐design policies on financial performance in the short‐term—they require more resources leading to more expensive products and so forth—could cause managers to pursue short‐term preferences rather than these types of strategies. However, investors recognize the value added potential of long‐term policies oriented to sustainable development (García‐Sánchez, Aibar‐Guzmán, & Aibar‐Guzmán, 2020; García‐Sánchez, Gallego‐Álvarez, & Zafra‐Gómez, 2020; López‐Arceiz, Santamaría, & del Río, 2020). Thus, the board of directors, which guarantees the interests of investors and other stakeholders (Priego‐de‐la‐Cruz, Alfaro‐Cortés, & Manzaneque‐Lizano, 2020), could be the main driver of the implementation of eco‐innovation and eco‐design strategies.…”

Work‐life balance and corporate social responsibility: The evaluation of gender differences on the relationship between family‐friendly psychological climate and altruistic behaviors at work

“…Women and men have different attitudes, values and psychological characteristics (Gallén & Peraita, 2017; García‐Sánchez, Oliveira, & Martínez‐Ferrero, 2020; Rosati, Costa, Calabrese, & Pedersen, 2018; Saifulina & Carballo‐Penela, 2017). Women's incorporation to work has not usually involved that men assume more domestic duties.…”