Gender diversity and financial performance in an emerging economy: empirical evidencefrom India

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the impact of gender diversity both at operational and leadership levels on the financial performance of firms in India. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on a panel data set of 100 large Indian corporate firms. This study uses the Blau index and Shannon index to compute gender diversity. First, this paper uses system generalized method of moments model to deal with the potential endogeneity issue in the association between gender diversity and firm performance. Second, to unveil heterogeneity in such a relationship, the study applies panel data quantile regression model. Finally, the study adopts a generalized estimating equation model to investigate such relationships for group affiliated and standalone firms. Findings - This study finds a significant positive impact of workforce gender diversity and board gender diversity on the financial performance of firms. Further, the results of the quantile regression model indicate that the impact of gender diversity (workforce and board) on firm performance is more pronounced at higher quantiles of the conditional distribution of firm performance. However, the study fails to extricate any significant impact of audit committee gender diversity on firm performance. Finally, the study also finds a significant positive impact of gender diversity at both workforce and board level for a group affiliated, as well as standalone firms. Originality/value - The present study makes a novel contribution to the extant literature on the association between gender diversity and financial performance of firms by examining such diversity at both operational and leadership levels in the context of an emerging country such as India that captures the complex realities pertaining to gender issues. Further, the study contributes to the empirical literature regarding the heterogeneous impact of gender diversity on firm performance in the Indian context.