EFFECT OF FEMALES IN THE BOARDROOM ON CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING

Abstract

Increasing body of research overtime has focused on corporate sustainability reporting due to its global significance. However, there is still scarcity of studies, especially, on the role of women in improving corporate sustainability reporting. Furthermore, this relationship is rarely investigated using African data. This studytakes advantage of this existing gap to explore the effect of female directorship andrepresentation in the audit committee on corporate sustainability reporting. This study utilized 120 firm year observations from sampled African firms that adopted for the period 2015 to 2020. Using quantitative approach, regression analysis wasused to test the hypotheses. The results of the regression analysis indicate that both female directorship and female presence in the audit committee have a significant positive effect on corporate sustainability reporting. It is therefore recommended that women directorship should be mandated on the boards of African firms to improve corporate sustainability reporting.