Female directors and gender issues reporting: The impact of stakeholder engagement at country level

• Published in: Corporate social-responsibility and environmental management Vol. 27; no. 1; pp. 369 - 382
• Main Authors: García‐Sánchez, Isabel‐María, Oliveira, Marcelle Colares, Martínez‐Ferrero, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bognor Regis Wiley Periodicals Inc 01-01-2020
• Subjects: CSR report; Directors; female directors; Females; Gender; gender issues; Logit models; Social responsibility
• ISSN: 1535-3958; 1535-3966
• DOI: 10.1002/csr.1811

Recent studies have investigated how women on boards impact corporate social responsibility reporting, a voluntary strategy clearly influenced by board composition in general and gender diversity in particular. However, this research goes further and proposes to provide evidence about how female directors influence gender issues reporting. Moreover, this research also examines the moderating effect between gender diversity on boards and country‐level factors related to stakeholder orientation. For an international sample of 8,609 firm‐year observations from 2007 to 2016 and by regressing several logit models for panel data, it was found that female directors increase the probability of voluntary reporting on gender issues. Moreover, the findings also suggest that institutional forces related to stakeholder pressures reinforce this effect; the greater reporting on gender issues that female directors achieve is even higher when firms are located in stakeholder‐oriented countries.