Women on the corporate board of directors and corporate sustainability disclosure

Abstract

This research examined whether an improved participation of women in the board of directors has any relationship with sustainability disclosure. Accordingly, the objective of this research was to examine the relationship between the number of women on the board of directors and social investment disclosure and energy disclosure in the sample of companies. The paper used a quantitative approach and data were collected from the archives of sustainability reports of five companies that formed the sample. The panel-data regression analysis was used in data arrangement. Five sample of companies over five years produced a (5 x 5) panel resulting in 25 observations. Data was tested at an alpha of 0.05. Results from all the analysis showed a P value below the research alpha (P < 0,05) indicating a significant relationship. Therefore, findings from the panel-data regression analysis disclosed a positive relationship between the number of women on the board of directors and corporate disclosure on social investment and energy consumption. Further analysis also disclosed that women on the board of directors are related with the overall number of women employees in the company. The paper concludes that within the sample of companies, women on the board of directors may influence sustainability disclosure such as energy and social investment. Women on the board of directors might also assist the companies to achieve gender equity employment goals. The research recommends that given the unique social and environmental proclivity of women, the corporate should recruit more women in the boards to enhance accelerated corporate sustainability performance. Further research using expanded number of companies is recommended.

Board Diversity, Sustainability Report Disclosure and Firm Value

“…The proportion of independent directors of the total number of directors does not have a significant positive relationship to any sustainability reporting variable. Glass and Cook (2016), Modiba and Ngwakwe (2017) analyse the influence between the existence of women leaders and the disclosure of sustainability reports. The results stated that companies with gender differences in the high ranks are more effective in implementing environmentally-friendly strategies than other companies.…”

Is Femvertising the New Greenwashing? Examining Corporate Commitment to Gender Equality

“…Members of the ad industry have called for companies to go beyond female empowerment messaging and hire women on their boards (Diaz and Zmuda 2014). Not only does representation at the leadership level signify a corporate commitment to empowering and recognizing the value of female employees, research suggests it may also correlate to a higher level of overall corporate responsibility activity (Cook and Glass 2018;Setó-Pamies 2015;Macaulay et al 2018), as well as to a higher number of female employees in a company (Modiba and Ngwakwe 2017;Skaggs et al 2012). As a result, we pose the following question: RQ2 Do femvertising award-winning companies and nonaward-winning companies differ in their female representation in the leadership of their company including the (a) percent of women on the board and (b) percent of women in leadership positions?…”

Factors Affecting Sustainability Reporting Disclosure

“…This is because the role of woman presence on board of directors is only complement to show stakeholders that the company cares about equality gender. Modiba & Ngwakwe (2017) found significant effect between the number of woman on the board of directors and sustainability disclosure. Based on the description above, the proposed hypotheses are.…”