The impact of board gender diversity on the Gulf Cooperation Council’s reporting on sustainable development goals

Abstract

The topic of gender diversity on corporate boards is becoming increasingly significant globally, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Investors are progressively taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations, such as gender diversity and sustainability reporting when making investment decisions. The research contributes to the existing but limited academic literature on gender diversity, corporate governance, and sustainability reporting in emerging markets by specifically examining the GCC region. The study emphasizes the strategic significance of adopting gender diversity and sustainability reporting as a means to improve company reputation and engage stakeholders for companies in the GCC. The purpose of this study was to investigate the board gender diversity and its impact on sustainable development goals (SDGs) reporting. The study collected a sample of 50 banks from the GCC region over 11 years from 2013 to 2023. The study concluded that return on assets (ROA), female on board, size, and book value (price-to-book ratio) had a positive impact on the SDGs, while leverage had a negative impact. Thus, this paper recommended including more females on boards to enhance the performance of companies towards reporting SDGs. Also, companies have to concentrate on increasing profitability, getting larger in size, and growing more in the market in order to attain SDGs as required by the GCC’s 2030 Vision. Nevertheless, companies have to reduce leverage to reduce risk and increase the possibility to move towards their SDGs. The results of the paper are robust by applying the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE).