Women directors, CEO duality and board structure: case of Indian firms' capital structure dynamism

Abstract

We investigate the impact of women directors, CEO duality, and board structure on capital structure dynamism for Indian firms. We consider top non-financial BSE Group A firms for the time 2010-2019. We use dynamic panel data methodology to deal with endogeneity concerns that are prevalent in corporate finance variables. The board independence and women directors are positively related to the SOA. Their presence is associated with the faster adjustments of the firms towards the optimum capital structure. On the other hand, board size and CEO duality are negatively associated with the SOA. We further noticed that the speed of adjustment for the strong governance firms is much faster than the weak governance firms. We conclude that the prospective investors should study the governance system of the companies before investing and place a premium on the firms with a good governance system.