Purpose – This paper aims to provide insights on the gender-performance relationship, this paper studies the impact of board gender diversity on firm performance, by taking into account the “critical mass” of women directors and their educational level. Design/methodology/approach – The hypotheses are tested on a unique dataset of 211 European Union publicly listed companies in 2012 belonging to the construction industry from 28 different countries through a set of ordinary least squares regressions. Findings – The evidence shows that the “critical mass” rather than the simple presence of women has an incremental benefit on firm performance. In addition, results show that the educational level of women directors negatively affects firm performance, as it might impact the dynamics within the boardroom. Research limitations/implications – The quantitative nature of the study does not allow drawing strong inferences on behavioral processes and dynamics in and around the boardroom. Nevertheless, this study will open new research insights on exploring the educational level on board. Practical implications – Regulators and policymakers that should be aware of the influence of women as a group on firm performance and that this role is differential across industries. Originality/value – The novelty of this paper is that it investigates the role of women in a high masculine gender-specific industry and explores a still poorly understood demographic variable (i.e. the educational level) of women directors.

No abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the relationship between family involvement and Initial Public Offering (IPO) value in the Italian context. Design/methodology/approach -Based on a unique hand-collected data set, the authors test the hypotheses on companies that went public between 2000 and 2011, making inference on 113 firms using OLS hierarchical regressions. The authors quantify the IPO value from an outside investors' perspective with two measures to proxy for IPO value in the short-term and apply robustness checks for long-run performance. In a stewardship framework, the authors examine demographic variables including family firm status, family involvement in managerial positions and family generations. Findings -The results suggest that family firm status positively influences IPO value, that greater family involvement corresponds to higher IPO value and lastly, that the beneficial effect of family control is mainly attributable to the first generation. The results are robust to alternative specifications of each phenomenon. Research limitations/implications -As a single-country study, the results refer exclusively to the Italian context and thus the evidence provided may not automatically be generalized to IPOs of comparable equity markets. Originality/value -This study expands current knowledge by showing how investors "price" family ownership in an IPO; furthermore the authors assess how certain characteristics of family firms affect the IPOs (e.g. family involvement and intergenerational).

According to the 2030 Agenda, gender equality plays a central role in achieving social development, expanding economic growth and improving business performance. From this perspective, many studies claim that a more balanced presence of women on Board of Directors (BoD) could have a positive impact on firms’ financial performance, but the effect of such diversity on sustainability performance is still underexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how gender composition of BoD affects the corporate sustainability practices. In particular, we focused on the relationship between board gender composition and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) performance, by verifying if and to what extent there is a moderation effect due to the presence of CEO duality. We used the ESG index, provided by Bloomberg Data Service, as a proxy of sustainability performance and the Blau index as a measure of gender diversity in the BoD. The empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of Italian non-financial companies listed on Mercato Telematico Azionario (MTA) and includes a total of 128 observations. Results has shown that a greater gender diversity on BoD has an overall positive influence on ESG performance, while CEO duality negatively moderates the foregoing relationship.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to innovation and family business literature by establishing whether institutional involvement of private equity (PE) and banks in family firms moderates the relationship between family ownership and research and development (R&D) investment. Design/methodology/approach This paper used the socio-emotional wealth lens to carry out an econometric analysis on a large sample of Italian non-listed family firms. Using the sample selection model meant it was possible to account for potential selection bias arising from firms’ discretionary disclosure of R&D expenditure. Findings Family involvement in ownership reduced firms’ R&D intensity. When PE investors also held shares, the negative relationship was diverted. Bank involvement, however, did not have a significant effect on the relationship. Research limitations/implications This paper enriches the innovation management literature by increasing the understanding of the determinants of R&D investments in family firms. The results support the view that non-financial priorities in family firms are contingent upon non-family shareholders. This enriches the debate about the heterogeneity of family businesses and is consistent with the socio-emotional wealth framework, which has shown that risk preferences may vary if desired and actual performances are different. This may be a fruitful area for future research. Originality/value Contradicting the assumption that institutional owners all share the same perspective, this study is the first to assess the impact of different institutional shareholders on R&D intensity of private family firms.