Board gender diversity, national culture, and water disclosure of multinational corporations

Xuhui Peng, Yi-Chen Lan, Jingduan Li and Hanlu Fan

Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 55, issue 14, 1581-1602

Abstract: Academic attention on corporate water disclosure and the role of board gender diversity (BGD) in corporate environmental responsibility has increased dramatically. However, the study of the relationship between BGD and corporate water disclosure is lagging, particularly in the influence of national culture on the relation. Therefore, this study investigates the water disclosure of 150 MNCs from China, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. using content analysis, theoretically discusses and empirically tests the relationship between BGD and MNCs’ water disclosure, and the moderating effects of national culture. The results indicate that (1) BGD positively impacts MNCs’ water disclosure, and (2) the cultural constructs of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance negatively moderate this relationship. These results reveal that female board members’ moral characteristics caused by gender differences are the key to promoting the board’s abilities of stakeholders’ water issue detection. This advantage of female board members could be enhanced or weakened in different national cultures. Our study closes a research gap, strengthens our understanding of the role of BGD in promoting the board’s water-related strategic decision-making, and extends the application of the national cultural dimension in interdisciplinary research in management and social science fields.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2022.2098240 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:55:y:2023:i:14:p:1581-1602

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2098240

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().