The Relationship Between Gender Diversity and Employee Representation at the Board Level and Non-Financial Performance: A Cross-Country Study

Kerstin Lopatta (), Katarina Böttcher, Sumit K. Lodhia () and Sebastian A. Tideman
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Kerstin Lopatta: Financial Accounting, Auditing and Corporate Governance, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Katarina Böttcher: Accounting and Corporate Governance, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
Sumit K. Lodhia: Centre for Sustainability, Governance University of South Australia, (UniSA) Business School, South Australia
Sebastian A. Tideman: Financial Accounting, Auditing and Corporate Governance, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany4Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, USA

The International Journal of Accounting (TIJA), 2020, vol. 55, issue 01, 1-46

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between the presence of employee representatives and female directors at the board level and a firm’s environmental and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Using an international sample of firms from 23 developed countries between 2001 and 2014, we provide evidence that the presence of labor representatives and a larger proportion of women as well as female labor representatives at the board level are positively related to CSR and environmental performance. Furthermore, we find no substitutional relationship between female board members and labor representation when we include an interaction term between the two. Our findings illustrate that the relevant legislation in some non-Anglo-Saxon countries is beneficial and could be introduced in Anglo-Saxon countries where employee representation rights are limited and female board members are still a minority.

Keywords: Codetermination; two-tier board system; gender diversity; employee representation; environmental performance; CSR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1142/S1094406020500018

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