Board Gender Diversity Codes, Quotas and Threats of Supranational Legislation: Impact on Director Characteristics and Corporate Outcomes

We explore how a code, soft quota and a proposal for supranational law for board gender diversity affects women directors’ human capital characteristics and corporate outcomes with an unbalanced panel of 116 non‐financial firms and 1,321 firm‐year observations from 2003 to 2016 in Spain. Consistent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of management Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 753 - 783
Main Authors: Martínez‐García, Irma, Terjesen, Siri, Gómez‐Ansón, Silvia
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2022
Subjects:
Companies
Directors
Gender
Human capital
Law
Legislation
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Quotas
Supranationalism
Uncertainty
Women
ISSN:1045-3172, 1467-8551
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We explore how a code, soft quota and a proposal for supranational law for board gender diversity affects women directors’ human capital characteristics and corporate outcomes with an unbalanced panel of 116 non‐financial firms and 1,321 firm‐year observations from 2003 to 2016 in Spain. Consistent with resource dependence theory, after a non‐punitive law is passed, boards seek to appoint more female directors who possess human capital attributes that will reduce uncertainty and bring necessary resources to firms. Compared with their pre‐law counterparts, the new female directors tend to have more human capital in terms of executive experience in non‐listed firms, and some non‐executive backgrounds, education and international experience; however, these new women directors generally possess less human capital than their male counterparts. Upper echelons theory suggests that board directors can meaningfully impact corporate outcomes. Overall, our results contradict upper echelons predictions about the impact of a regulation‐driven increase of women directors on corporate outcomes. Indeed, we find a lack of impact of the increase in women's presence on boards on corporate outcomes. Regarding policy, our findings substantially differ from those reported for countries with ‘hard law’ board gender quotas.
Bibliography:The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CNMV.
The authors do not have any conflict of interest.
The authors acknowledge comments received at the 2018 European Academy of Management (EURAM) Annual Conference, the XXVI Finance Forum and the 2018 Spanish Scientific Association for Business Economics and Management (ACEDE). We are grateful for support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation, Project ECO2015‐69058‐R. Irma Martínez García acknowledges Eudald Canadell for inviting her to present the paper at the Seminar Programme of the Department of Research and Statistics of CNMV, the grants from the Ministry of Education's Faculty Training Programme (FPU14/04758 and EST17/00542) and the American University Center of Innovation for her visiting stay. We would particularly like to acknowledge the suggestions and comments of the editor, the associate editor and the three reviewers.
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ISSN:1045-3172
1467-8551
DOI:10.1111/1467-8551.12517