Financial Performance and Gender Diversity: The Moderating and Mediating Effect of CSR Disclosure and Expenditure of Listed Firms in India

Abstract

The study examines the moderating and mediating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and CSR expenditure on the association between listed firms’ financial performance and gender diversity. There are 80 listed firms with 800 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2019 that qualified for the study using the Indian stock market. The first finding shows a negative association between financial leverage and gender diversity. The second finding shows that the implementation of CSR disclosure hurts the improvement of gender diversity. The third finding shows that CSR expenditure improves gender diversity of listed firms in an emerging market. The fouth finding shows that CSR expenditure positively mediates the negative association between financial leverage and gender diversity. The fifth finding shows that CSR disclosure does not mediate the association between financial performance (return on assets, price to book ratio and financial leverage). The sixth finding shows that CSR expenditure negatively moderates the negative association between return on assets and gender diversity.