Many governments seek to impose gender equality on boards, but the consequences of doing so are not clear and could harm firms and economies. We shed light on this topic by conceptualizing the relationships as firm‐ and board‐specific and embedded within specific contexts. The theory is developed with reference to emerging markets, and tested on Malaysian firms. We find that female directors create value for some firms and decrease it for others. The impact varies across different performance indicators, firms' ownership, and boards' structure. The findings call for nuanced responses in relation to women's nominations from both governments and firms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

No abstract

Many governments seek to impose gender equality on boards, but the consequences of doing so are not clear and could harm firms and economies. We shed light on this topic by conceptualizing the relationships as firm-and board-specific and embedded within specific contexts. The theory is developed with reference to emerging markets, and tested on Malaysian firms. We find that female directors create value for some firms and decrease it for others. The impact varies across different performance indicators, firms' ownership, and boards' structure. The findings call for nuanced responses in relation to women's nominations from both governments and firms.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the representation of women on the boards (WOMBDs) and audit committees is associated with a reduction in the practice of earnings management and whether women are associated with income reducing (conservative) rather than income-increasing (aggressive) earnings management. The authors further argue that family ownership moderates the relationship between the presence of WOMBDs and audit committees and earnings management. Design/methodology/approach The study uses non-finance firms listed on Bursa Malaysia over a period of four years, i.e. from 2008 until 2011. Findings The evidence reveals that the presence of WOMBD or audit committee is not associated with a propensity for earnings management. In addition, the evidence also reveals that family ownership does not interact either with WOMBD or with women on the audit committee (WOMAC) to influence the propensity for earnings management. Nevertheless, the additional analyses show that, while women on boards are not associated with income-decreasing accruals, the presence of women on audit committees leads to income-reducing earnings management. The evidence further reveals that family ownership does not interact with either WOMBD or WOMAC to influence income-decreasing earnings management. Originality/value This study extends prior research on the role of women directors and women audit committee members on earnings management focussing on family ownership. Further, the study also examines the direction of earnings management as opposed to the most prior studies, which mainly focus on the propensity of earnings management.

Board diversity is important especially in countries which practice a one-tier board system, such as Malaysia. Under the system, board appointments are usually controlled by the firm's substantial shareholders, and as a result, directors are chosen based on "the old-boy" network or "people like us", who are typically middle-aged males and from similar ethnicity which could lead to "group think". Board diversity ensures breadth and depth of the board's judgments. To this end, this study examines board diversity of the top 100 non-financial Malaysian firms, specifically directors' gender, ethnicity and age and their effects on firm performance. Data are collected from the 2007 annual reports of the sample firms. The evidence indicates the lack of diversity of the Malaysian boards of directors. Results from the multivariate analyses reveal that gender diversity is negatively associated with Tobin's q and rOA. Age diversity is found to be negatively related to rOA. Ethnic diversity, on the other hand, is found to be positively associated with rOA. Hence, findings on the effect of board diversity and firm performance are mixed. Nevertheless, this study offers insights to policy makers in enhancing corporate governance in Malaysia where diversity is one of the areas that could strengthen the effectiveness of the board.