The link between CSR performance and CSR disclosure quality: does board diversity matter?

Prior research suggests that board diversity, especially in terms of gender, potentially enhances its effectiveness. However, as a construct, diversity extends beyond gender to encompass board members’ other demographic attributes as well as cognitive features such as attitudes, values, beliefs, knowledge, skills and capabilities. We expect these two sides of diversity, which we label demographic and cognitive, to play a critical role in determining a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. For our purpose, CSR performance and disclosure comprise environmental and social dimensions. Our results show that social performance exhibits a positive relation to a board’s demographic and cognitive diversities, while environmental performance relates to cognitive diversity, but not demographic diversity. Moreover, both forms of diversity mediate the positive relationship between social performance and social disclosure quality, while only demographic diversity mediates the positive relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure quality.