Search results for "Gender Diversity"

2021

Scholarly journals are often blamed for a gender gap in publication rates, but it is unclear whether peer review and editorial processes contribute to it. This article examines gender bias in peer review with data for 145 journals in various fields of research, including about 1.7 million authors and 740,000 referees. We reconstructed three possible sources of bias, i.e., the editorial selection of referees, referee recommendations, and editorial decisions, and examined all their possible relationships. Results showed that manuscripts written by women as solo authors or coauthored by women were treated even more favorably by referees and editors. Although there were some differences between…

Using databases to improve the visibility of women’s contributions in STEM fields

2021

Las bases de datos son herramientas muy poderosas para simplificar la gestión y el acceso a la información, que han demostrado ser capacidades fundamentales en la era de la ciencia de datos. Actualmente, las bases de datos se utilizan ampliamente en muchas aplicaciones y campos diferentes. En este trabajo destacamos los beneficios que pueden aportar las bases de datos disponibles públicamente de mujeres profesionales que trabajan en los campos de la Ciencia, la Tecnología, la Ingeniería y las Matemáticas (CTIM) para superar el problema de la falta de diversidad y equidad de género en estos campos. Algunos ejemplos de bases de datos públicas en España se presentan en este trabajo. Se hace es…

Board Gender Diversity: Challenges and Implications for Corporations in the East African Community

2019

East African Community’s (EAC) corporations are required to follow a regional treaty of mainstreaming gender equality. This article discusses challenges encountered by corporate boards of the EAC’s...

Determinants of Board Structure in Microfinance Institutions: Evidence from East Africa

2013

This study investigates the association between the unique characteristics of microfinance institutions and board structure. The agency and resource dependence theories provided theoretical guidance for this study. Using a panel dataset of 63 microfinance institutions in East Africa, we found that the presence of regulations and international influence is associated with larger boards, while the presence of founders is associated with small boards and less board independence. There is a higher level of board gender diversity in microfinance institutions managed by founders. There is greater diversity of nationalities in microfinance institutions that are internationally influenced. The imp…

Commitment of independent and institutional women directors to corporate social responsibility reporting

2018

This paper examines how independent and institutional women directors on boards affect corporate social responsibility (hereafter CSR) reporting. Most of the previous empirical evidence has shown a linear association between female directors and CSR disclosure, but to the best of our knowledge, no research has investigated the individual effect of independent and institutional female directors on CSR reporting. Therefore, the analysis of how the disclosure of CSR information is affected by independent and institutional women directors in a separate way merits our attention. Thus, we posit that there is a nonlinear association, concretely quadratic, between independent and institutional fema…

The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality

2017

Recent research in accounting suggests female directors exert more stringent monitoring over the financial reporting process than their male counterparts. However, an emerging literature in finance and economics provides mixed findings and questions whether females in leadership roles significantly differ from their male counterparts. Building on this literature, we re-examine the link between the presence of female directors, gender biases, and financial statements quality. Using a large sample of UK firms we find that a larger percentage of women among independent directors is significantly associated with lower earnings management practices. However, we show that this relation disappears…

The board of directors and dividenc policy: the effect of gender diversity

2015

In this article, we aim to study the impact on dividends policy of gender diversity on the board of directors (hereinafter BD). We hypothesize that the proportion of women directors, the proportion of independent, institutional, and executive female directors, and the percentage of shares held by female directors on BD, have an impact on the dividends policy of Spanish companies. Our findings, analyzing the whole sample, show that the proportion of female directors and shares held by female directors are positively associated with dividend payout, while the percentage of institutional female directors has a negative impact. The percentage of independent and executive female directors has no…

Resistance to Change in the Corporate Elite

2017

In this empirical study, we investigate the variation in firms’ response to institutional pressure for gender-balanced boards, focusing specifically on the preservation of prevailing practices of director selection and its impact on the representation of women on the board of directors. Using 8 years of data from publicly listed Nordic corporations, we show societal pressure to be one of the determinants of female directorship. Moreover, in some corporations, the director selection process may work to maintain “a traditional type of board”. In such boards, demographic diversity among male members appears to be associated with a lower share of female directors, although we cannot establish w…

The Impact of Corporate Board Characteristics on Firm Value: A Literature Survey

2018

This chapter provides a review of theoretical and empirical studies that analyze the effects of board characteristics on firm performance. It serves the purpose of demonstrating different approaches to studying corporate board characteristics as well as the importance of examining these characteristics, namely, board size, board independence, board leadership, gender diversity, board busyness and staggered boards.

Is Board Gender Diversity a Driver of CEO Compensation?: Examining the Leadership Style of Institutional Women Directors

2017

In this investigation, we aim at examining the influence of institutional female directors on CEO compensation. Specifically, we investigate the impact of institutional female directors as a whole, differentiating by whether female directors have business ties with the firms’ boards on which they sit (pressure-sensitive female directors) or do not have business links (pressure-resistant female directors). We hypothesize that there is a nonlinear association, specifically quadratic, between institutional, pressureresistant and pressure-sensitive female directors on boards, and CEO compensation. Our findings show that CEO compensation decreases with low levels of institutional female director…