IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/ijodag/v20y2023i2d10.1057_s41310-021-00109-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The long-term effects of female board representation on accounting quality: Causal evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Mahmoud Ahmed

    (Sohag University)

Abstract

This paper investigates how women’s representation on corporate boards affects financial reporting quality. Drawing on a discussion of existing research, I argue that increasing women’s representation on boards reduces undue CEO influence over the board, and thereby, accounting quality will improve. Using a difference-in-difference (DiD) approach, this paper documents how increasing female representation increases accounting quality. This result holds only in the long run as females gain more experience in the boardroom. In addition, I show that the effect of female representation on accounting quality is attenuated for larger firms and larger boards. This is consistent with the notion that the effect of female representation is likely to be stronger when the information friction is higher. These findings challenge the conventions that underscore the importance of board diversity for today’s firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahmoud Ahmed, 2023. "The long-term effects of female board representation on accounting quality: Causal evidence," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(2), pages 109-118, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:ijodag:v:20:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1057_s41310-021-00109-1
    DOI: 10.1057/s41310-021-00109-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41310-021-00109-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41310-021-00109-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bin Srinidhi & Ferdinand A. Gul & Judy Tsui, 2011. "Female Directors and Earnings Quality," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(5), pages 1610-1644, December.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Sandra E Black & Sissel Jensen & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2019. "Breaking the Glass Ceiling? The Effect of Board Quotas on Female Labour Market Outcomes in Norway," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 191-239.
    3. Seierstad, Cathrine & Opsahl, Tore, 2011. "For the few not the many? The effects of affirmative action on presence, prominence, and social capital of women directors in Norway," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 44-54, March.
    4. Nina Smith, 2018. "Gender quotas on boards of directors," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    6. Bøhren, Øyvind & Staubo, Siv, 2014. "Does mandatory gender balance work? Changing organizational form to avoid board upheaval," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 152-168.
    7. Helland, Eric & Sykuta, Michael, 2004. "Regulation and the Evolution of Corporate Boards: Monitoring, Advising, or Window Dressing?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 167-193, April.
    8. Øyvind Bøhren & Siv Staubo, 2016. "Mandatory Gender Balance and Board Independence," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(1), pages 3-30, January.
    9. Nygaard, Knut, 2011. "Forced board changes: Evidence from Norway," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 5/2011, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    10. Adams, Renée B. & Ferreira, Daniel, 2009. "Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 291-309, November.
    11. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    12. Kenneth R. Ahern & Amy K. Dittmar, 2012. "The Changing of the Boards: The Impact on Firm Valuation of Mandated Female Board Representation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 137-197.
    13. Xie, Biao & Davidson, Wallace III & DaDalt, Peter J., 2003. "Earnings management and corporate governance: the role of the board and the audit committee," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 295-316, June.
    14. Winfried Ruigrok & Simon Peck & Sabina Tacheva, 2007. "Nationality and Gender Diversity on Swiss Corporate Boards," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 546-557, July.
    15. Beaver, William H. & McNichols, Maureen F. & Nelson, Karen K., 2003. "Management of the loss reserve accrual and the distribution of earnings in the property-casualty insurance industry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 347-376, August.
    16. Jere R. Francis & Dechun Wang, 2008. "The Joint Effect of Investor Protection and Big 4 Audits on Earnings Quality around the World," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(1), pages 157-191, March.
    17. Gopal Krishnan & Linda Parsons, 2008. "Getting to the Bottom Line: An Exploration of Gender and Earnings Quality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(1), pages 65-76, March.
    18. Lin, Chen & Ma, Yue & Malatesta, Paul & Xuan, Yuhai, 2012. "Corporate ownership structure and bank loan syndicate structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 1-22.
    19. Helen Kang & Mandy Cheng & Sidney J. Gray, 2007. "Corporate Governance and Board Composition: diversity and independence of Australian boards," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 194-207, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antoine Rebérioux & Gwenaël Roudaut, 2016. "Gender Quota inside the Boardroom: Female Directors as New Key Players?," Working Papers hal-01297884, HAL.
    2. Gull, Ammar Ali & Nekhili, Mehdi & Nagati, Haithem & Chtioui, Tawhid, 2018. "Beyond gender diversity: How specific attributes of female directors affect earnings management," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 255-274.
    3. Paul B. McGuinness & João Paulo Vieito & Mingzhu Wang, 2020. "Proactive government intervention, board gender balance, and stakeholder engagement in China and Europe," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 719-762, September.
    4. Ferreira, Daniel & Ginglinger, Edith & Laguna, Marie-Aude & Skalli, Yasmine, 2017. "Board Quotas and Director-Firm Matching," CEPR Discussion Papers 12117, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Ding, Rong & Duan, Tinghua & Hou, Wenxuan & Liu, Xianda & Xu, Ziwei, 2022. "Do women drive corporate social responsibility? Evidence from gender diversity reforms around the world," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Chiara Pronzato & Paola Profeta & Valeria Ferraro & Giulia Ferrari, 2016. "Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market," Working Papers id:11411, eSocialSciences.
    7. García Lara, Juan Manuel & García Osma, Beatriz & Mora, Araceli & Scapin, Mariano, 2017. "The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 651-668.
    8. Giulia Ferrari & Valeria Ferraro & Paola Profeta & Chiara Pronzato, 2022. "Do Board Gender Quotas Matter? Selection, Performance, and Stock Market Effects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 5618-5643, August.
    9. Alexandra Fedorets & Anna Gibert, 2022. "Lifting Women Up: Gender Quotas and the Advancement of Women on Corporate Boards," Working Papers 1370, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Emmanuel Mensah & Christopher Boachie, 2023. "Corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management: The moderating role of female directors," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 2167290-216, December.
    11. Nguyen, Thi Hong Hanh & Ntim, Collins G. & Malagila, John K., 2020. "Women on corporate boards and corporate financial and non-financial performance: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    12. Ammar Ali Gull & Ammar Abid & Rashid Latief & Muhammad Usman, 2021. "Women on board and auditors’ assessment of the risk of material misstatement," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 11(4), pages 679-708, December.
    13. Réal Labelle & Claude Francoeur & Faten Lakhal, 2015. "To Regulate Or Not To Regulate? Early Evidence on the Means Used Around the World to Promote Gender Diversity in the Boardroom," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 339-363, July.
    14. Simona, Comi & Mara, Grasseni & Federica, Origo & Laura, Pagani, 2017. "Where Women Make The Difference. The Effects of Corporate Board Gender Quotas on Firms’ Performance across Europe," Working Papers 367, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised 12 Jul 2017.
    15. Hermes, Cornelis & Oxelheim, L. & Randoy, Trond & Hooghiemstra, Reginald, 2015. "The impact of board internationalization on earnings management," Research Report 15010-I&O, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    16. Young Zik Shin & Jeung-Yoon Chang & Kyeongmin Jeon & Hyunpyo Kim, 2020. "Female directors on the board and investment efficiency: evidence from Korea," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 438-479, September.
    17. Simona Alfiero & Massimo Cane & Ruggiero Doronzo & Alfredo Esposito, 2018. "Determining characteristics of boards adopting Integrated Reporting," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2018(2), pages 37-71.
    18. Simona Comi & Mara Grasseni & Federica Origo & Laura Pagani, 2020. "Where Women Make a Difference: Gender Quotas and Firms’ Performance in Three European Countries," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(3), pages 768-793, May.
    19. Silvia Del Prete & Giulio Papini & Marco Tonello, 2022. "Gender quotas, board diversity and spillover effects. Evidence from Italian banks," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1395, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    20. Hooghiemstra, Reggy & Hermes, Niels & Oxelheim, Lars & Randøy, Trond, 2019. "Strangers on the board: The impact of board internationalization on earnings management of Nordic firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 119-134.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Women’s representation; Board of directors; Accounting quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:ijodag:v:20:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1057_s41310-021-00109-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.