Female Directors, Culture and Governance Around the World

Abstract

The proportion of female directors differs among countries. Drawing on institutional and social role theories, this paper investigates whether national governance quality (NGQ) and national culture (NC) can explain the differences in the appointment of female directors among countries around the world. Using 647 firms from 78 countries over the 2010 to 2017 period, the main findings show that both national culture and governance quality have influence on the appointment of female directors. We find further that the impact of national culture on the presence of women directors is moderated by national governance quality. Finally, the results support institutional and social role theories in terms of explaining the difference in appointment of female directors among countries. Our findings are robust to controlling for endogeneities and alternative measures of culture and female directors.