 Does fostering inclusion in the workplace enhance corporate financial performance?Muhammad Ullah, Qazi Ghulam Mustafa Qureshi and Hameed Ullah Finance Research Letters, 2025, vol. 81, issue C Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of workplace inclusion—defined as the procedures organizations implement to integrate everyone in the workplace—on corporate financial performance, examining for the first time its effect on market valuation alongside profitability. We construct a composite, policy-based inclusion measure based on five observable components: flexible working hours, daycare services, disability inclusion, corporate equality index, and HIV/AIDS programs. Using a cross-country panel of 14,387 firm-year observations from 2011 to 2022 and estimating high-dimensional fixed effects regression models, we find that inclusion is positively associated with both firm profitability and market valuation, suggesting that inclusive workplace policies enhance financial performance. However, this relationship varies across national contexts. These findings underscore the strategic value of inclusion, offering practical insights for various stakeholders. Keywords: Disability inclusion; Diversity and inclusion (D&I); Financial performance; Flexible working hours; Corporate equality; Social exchange theory (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finlet:v:81:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325007809 DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107521 Access Statistics for this article Finance Research Letters is currently edited by R. Gençay More articles in Finance Research Letters from Elsevier |
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