The Presence of Female Directors on Boards. An Empirical Investigation About Its Effects on CSR

Abstract

In recent years, in European countries, there has been a growing consensus that gender diversity could improve the economic and social performance of companies. In some countries, the process was supported by the issuing of rules that provided for the mandatory presence of women on boards. Our first aim is to study the level and evolution of the presence of female directors on boards in the biggest European listed companies in the period 2012–2016. Secondly, according to previous literature, we want to verify if the presence of female directors positively affects companies’ CRS disclosure. We have selected for the period 2012–2016 the biggest European listed companies and for each one we verify the presence of women through the ratio between the number of women on the board and the total number of the board. We propose to carry out a descriptive analysis aimed at verifying the evolution of women on company boards, regarding presence and power. Furthermore, we want to test if the presence of female directors has positively affected the companies’ CRS disclosure. We will select the Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) indicator from Bloomberg database as the dependent variable and gender equality measures as explicative variables. Our first contribution is to do a descriptive analysis of the presence and the power of female directors in the sample. We want to provide a picture of the European situation regarding gender equality. The second contribution is to verify if the female directors have positively affected the companies’ CSR disclosure. We contribute to literature by providing a comparison among different European countries, to verify if the female presence has been growing only when forced by law. Secondly, we want to verify if the presence of female directors improves the level of CSR disclosure.