Democracy across Gender Diversity and Ethnicity of Middle Eastern SMEs: How Does Performance Differ?

Charbel Salloum (), Georges Jabbour and Catherine Mercier-Suissa ()
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Charbel Salloum: USEK - Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik
Catherine Mercier-Suissa: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon

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Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between boards of directors' demographic diversity and firms' financial performance. In particular, we highlight how women and ethnic minorities can affect Middle Eastern SMEs' financial performance. Using an unbalanced panel of 1,855 firm-year observations of 371 boards of directors from nine Middle Eastern countries, our results support the positive impact of women and ethnic minority group members on Middle Eastern firms' performance. However, our evidence implies that when Western ethnic minority members increase, firms' performances tend to decrease, because these board members are appointed for regional and international board reputation legitimacy, personal business agendas, and links to the external corporate environment.

Keywords: Middle Eastern; SMEs' financial performance; demographic diversity; boards of directors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02-20
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published in Journal of Small Business Management, 2019, 57 (1), pp.255-267. ⟨10.1111/jsbm.12336⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01472697

DOI: 10.1111/jsbm.12336

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