Purpose: This paper examines if gender diversity on corporate boards promotes corporate social performance across industries and across countries. Methodology: Fixed-effect panel models are estimated using European-wide data from 2002 through 2013. Instrumental variable estimation and propensity score matching are also employed to control for potential endogeneity. Findings: Board gender diversity improves environmental and social performance, and consequently the corporate social performance. Although the positive effect of gender diversity is prevalent across industries, the effect is more pronounced for firms in emerging markets. Regulatory implications: The findings suggest that gender law that fosters gender diversity can promote corporate social performance in firms and the benefit can be enjoyed with just an introduction of one female director to the board. Promotion of gender diversity in Europe is most beneficial in emerging markets. Originality: The results provide new insights to the literature as we find that a critical mass of female directors on boards is not required to promote corporate social performance. The research also highlights that board gender diversity enhances corporate social performance irrespective of the industry and the effect on corporate social performance is more pronounced in emerging markets where regulations regarding CSR are not so clear-cut.

Available online xxxx JEL classification: G34 J16 M10 M41 a b s t r a c tWe examine the effect board gender diversity has on earnings management in European countries. The findings reveal that a gender diverse board mitigates earnings management in countries where gender equality is high. This provides an explanation to the inconclusive findings in the literature.

This study examines the influence of the institutional framework of European countries: more specifically coordinated market economies and liberal market economies on the earnings management and corporate social performance nexus. Employing econometric models impervious to endogeneity, our results show that socially responsible firms (particularly those with high governance scores) in coordinated market economies engage in earnings management. These findings suggest that in countries in which institutional settings enable implicit undertakings of corporate social responsibility in firm policies, firm practices ostensibly related to corporate social performance may serve purposes other than meeting stakeholders' ethical expectations and those of society at large.

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