Reshaping gender quotas in the boardroom: women's participation and accounting conservatism in Indonesia

In Indonesia, a woman's role is often referred to as a wife, a mother, and a housewife instead of a career position. Thus, women's participation in the boardroom is low. The board gender diversity exhibits advantages such as providing good financial reporting quality. Therefore, this study examines accounting conservatism as a good financial reporting quality and explores the association between women's participation, firm-specific controls, and accounting conservatism in Indonesian manufacturing companies. The study finds that Indonesian manufacturing companies are not conservative in financial reporting. The result demonstrates that hiring more women in the boardroom can enhance accounting conservatism. Hence, reshaping gender quotas - to include more women in the boardroom should be imposed. The result also highlights that in the absence of the conservatism principle, risk disclosure can be a substitute for conservatism, especially in the case of firms' higher profits.