Is there a ‘business case’ for board gender diversity within French listed SMEs

ABSTRACT

Many studies have investigated the relationship between women on corporate boards (WOCB) and firm performance in accordance with the ‘business case’ for board gender diversity. However, these have been conducted on large firms. This study re-examines this relationship for a sample of French listed SMEs over the period 2010–2014 using a dynamic panel GMM estimator to mitigate endogeneity issues. We find that the percentage of WOCB is positively and significantly related to firm performance. However, the other proxies for board gender diversity are not statistically different from zero. We argue that the relationship is not straightforward. This finding is interesting as it sheds light on the ‘business case’.

KEYWORDS:

• Dynamic panel GMM estimator
• gender diversity
• firm performance
• SME

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• G30
• G34
• J16

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003.

² But available upon request from the authors.