Firm's biodiversity initiatives disclosure and board gender diversity: A multi‐country analysis of corporations operating in Europe

Abstract

Environmental practices, in particular biodiversity protection, are crucial for a business to maintain its market valuation and social license. Grounded in resource dependency theory and upper echelon theory, we test the link between board gender diversity and firm's biodiversity initiatives disclosure. Also, we investigate potential moderating variables such as eco‐innovation, resource consumption reduction, and firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) awards that could strengthen the link between board gender diversity and corporate biodiversity initiatives disclosure. To empirically test our study's framework, we rely on a sample of non‐financial firms operating in 13 European countries between 2002 and 2021. Our estimation results show that women's presence on boards is positively associated with better disclosure of biodiversity conservation initiatives of a firm. Also, our study suggests that firm's eco‐innovation, resource usage, and CSR awards are important and moderate the board gender diversity and biodiversity conservation disclosure nexus. Our results hold to a battery of sensitivity analyses.

Shaping a sustainable future: The impact of board gender diversity on clean energy use and the moderating role of environmental, social and governance controversies

“…The objective of this research is to address the gap in previous studies by exploring the influence of women on a board of directors on the utilization of renewable energy, while simultaneously analyzing how the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) controversies moderates this relationship. Although some studies have explored the relationship between board gender diversity and various aspects of ESG, such as biodiversity initiatives (Issa & Zaid, 2023), environmental performance (Lu & Herremans, 2019), carbon reporting (Ben-Amar et al, 2017), and corporate social responsibility (Boulouta, 2013), there is still a dearth of research on the relationship between female board members and clean energy use. Furthermore, previous studies have some limitations, such as a narrow focus on US firms (e.g., Atif et al, 2021) or not specifically examining the impact of female board members on clean energy use (e.g., Zhang et al, 2021).…”

Breaking the glass ceiling for a sustainable future: the power of women on corporate boards in reducing ESG controversies

“…The consequences of climate change are already being felt globally, and unless action is taken soon, the future effects will be much more severe (Issa and Zaid, 2023). Europe, like other regions in the world, is also being affected by global warming, as it is the third most populous continent on Earth.…”

Do professional shareholders matter for corporate compliance with IFRS reporting requirements: the moderating effect of board independence

“…Accordingly, we introduce board size ( BSIZE ) as a control variable. Larger board size is anticipated to have a higher score of diversity (Issa and Zaid, 2023; Issa et al , 2022), including but not limited to skills, experience and ideas that can be valuable for a firm to generate high-quality information. We also control for CEO duality ( DUAL ) (Issa and Zaid, 2021).…”