The influence of gender diversity on corporate performance

Abstract

This work focuses on the effect of gender diversity on corporate performance. The current work, an extension of previous studies, focuses on the presence and effect of female stockholders, directors and top managers by analysing their impact on various accounting ratios, market value and technical efficiency. With a view to testing these hypotheses, we selected Spanish corporations that were listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange over the period 2004–2006 as an objective population. Corporate governance information on these companies is available from the CNMV database. Our findings show that companies with higher levels of gender diversity do not obviously outperform other companies with lower levels, in terms of several market and accounting measures. Therefore, gender diversity may not influence corporate performance.

Keywords

• Corporate governance
• gender diversity
• corporate performance
• panel data