IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rfe/zbefri/v41y2023i1p41-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender diversity in the boardroom and earnings management during the period of the COVID-19 crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Toni Šušak

    (University Department of Forensic Sciences, University of Split, Split, Croatia)

  • Tomislava Paviæ Kramariæ

    (University Department of Forensic Sciences, University of Split, Split, Croatia)

  • Marijana Bartuloviæ

    (University Department of Forensic Sciences, University of Split, Split, Croatia)

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the relationship between gender diversity in management and supervisory boards and the level of earnings management. The research sample comprised companies listed on the Croatian national stock exchange, and the panel data was obtained for the 2015-2020 period to estimate regression models. Findings indicated that the presence and higher share of female directors on management boards were beneficial for curtailing earnings management but only for the financial statements disclosed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, such effort was vital due to the escalation of earnings management caused by extremely pessimistic economic expectations. In the financial statements disclosed during the second year of the pandemic, the level of earnings management considerably declined, and female directors were not as effective in restraining these activities as in the first year. It could imply greater prudence of female directors when anticipating the intensity of public scrutiny regarding financial statements in a period of crisis. Gender diversity in supervisory boards proved to be an insignificant determinant of earnings management during the COVID-19 crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Toni Šušak & Tomislava Paviæ Kramariæ & Marijana Bartuloviæ, 2023. "Gender diversity in the boardroom and earnings management during the period of the COVID-19 crisis," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 41(1), pages 41-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:rfe:zbefri:v:41:y:2023:i:1:p:41-63
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.efri.uniri.hr/upload/ZBORNIK%201%202023/04-Susak_et_al-2023-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:eme:maj000:maj-07-2019-2364 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kevin Campbell & Antonio Mínguez-Vera, 2008. "Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firm Financial Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 435-451, December.
    3. Croissant, Yves & Millo, Giovanni, 2008. "Panel Data Econometrics in R: The plm Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i02).
    4. Emrah Arioglu, 2020. "The affiliations and characteristics of female directors and earnings management: evidence from Turkey," Managerial Auditing Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(7), pages 927-953, July.
    5. Xingqiang Du & Shaojuan Lai & Hongmei Pei, 2016. "Do Women Top Managers Always Mitigate Earnings Management? Evidence from China," China Journal of Accounting Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 308-338, July.
    6. Fan, Yaoyao & Jiang, Yuxiang & Zhang, Xuezhi & Zhou, Yue, 2019. "Women on boards and bank earnings management: From zero to hero," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    7. 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.
    8. Bilel Bzeouich & Faten Lakhal & Neila Dammak, 2019. "Earnings management and corporate investment efficiency: does the board of directors matter?," Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 17(4), pages 650-670, December.
    9. David A. Carter & Betty J. Simkins & W. Gary Simpson, 2003. "Corporate Governance, Board Diversity, and Firm Value," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 33-53, February.
    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. Garanina, Tatiana & Muravyev, Alexander, 2021. "The gender composition of corporate boards and firm performance: Evidence from Russia," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    2. Ioannis Tampakoudis & Andreas Andrikopoulos & Michail Nerantzidis & Nikolaos Kiosses, 2022. "Does boardroom gender diversity affect shareholder wealth? Evidence from bank mergers and acquisitions," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 3315-3344, July.
    3. Alharbi, Rana & Elnahass, Marwa & McLaren, Josie, 2022. "Women directors and market valuation: What are the “Wonder Woman” attributes in banking?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Benkraiem, Ramzi & Boubaker, Sabri & Brinette, Souad & Khemiri, Sabrina, 2021. "Board feminization and innovation through corporate venture capital investments: The moderating effects of independence and management skills," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    5. Vuong, Quan-Hoang & Huyen, Nguyen Thanh Thanh & Pham, Thanh-Hang & Phuong, Luong Anh & Nguyen, Minh-Hoang, 2020. "Mapping the intellectual and conceptual structure of research on gender issues in the family business: A bibliometric review," OSF Preprints jgnrw, Center for Open Science.
    6. Katia Furlotti & Tatiana Mazza & Veronica Tibiletti & Silvia Triani, 2019. "Women in top positions on boards of directors: Gender policies disclosed in Italian sustainability reporting," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(1), pages 57-70, January.
    7. Ishmael Tingbani & Lyton Chithambo & Venancio Tauringana & Nikolaos Papanikolaou, 2020. "Board gender diversity, environmental committee and greenhouse gas voluntary disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2194-2210, September.
    8. Berna Dogan Basar, 2021. "Corporate Governance, Cost of Capital and Tobin Q: Empirical Evidence from Turkey Listed Companies," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 19(1), pages 51-78.
    9. Nguyen, Tuan & Nguyen, An & Nguyen, Mau & Truong, Thuyen, 2021. "Is national governance quality a key moderator of the boardroom gender diversity–firm performance relationship? International evidence from a multi-hierarchical analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 370-390.
    10. Hiroaki Niikura & Miki Seko, 2020. "The effect of inside and outside female directors on firm performance: comparison of the First section, Second section, Mothers, and Jasdaq in the Tokyo Stock Exchange Market," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 123-166, February.
    11. Anne Marie Ward & John Forker, 2017. "Financial Management Effectiveness and Board Gender Diversity in Member-Governed, Community Financial Institutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 351-366, March.
    12. Aggarwal, Raj & Jindal, Varun & Seth, Rama, 2019. "Board diversity and firm performance: The role of business group affiliation," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1-1.
    13. Rey Dang & Anne Françoise Bender & Marie José Scotto, 2014. "Women on French Corporate Board of Directors: How Do They Differ from their Male Counterparts?," Working Papers 2014-54, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    14. Irene Wei Kiong Ting & Wei-Kang Wang & Wen-Min Lu & Yun-Jung Chen, 2021. "Do female directors will have impact on corporate performance?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 611-631, April.
    15. Md Arafat Hossain & Elaine Yen Nee Oon, 2022. "Board leadership, board meeting frequency and firm performance in two‐tier boards," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(3), pages 862-879, April.
    16. Pastore, Francesco & Webster, Allan & Hope, Kevin, 2020. "Assessing the Role of Women in Tourism Related Sectors in the Caribbean," IZA Discussion Papers 13486, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. 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).
    18. Mihaela Ionascu & Ion Ionascu & Marian Sacarin & Mihaela Minu, 2018. "Women on Boards and Financial Performance: Evidence from a European Emerging Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-18, May.
    19. Mehdi Nekhili & Hayette Gatfaoui, 2013. "Are Demographic Attributes and Firm Characteristics Drivers of Gender Diversity? Investigating Women’s Positions on French Boards of Directors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 227-249, December.
    20. Ghosh, Saibal, 2017. "Why is it a man’s world, after all? Women on bank boards in India," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 109-121.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19 crisis; boardroom; earnings management; gender; diversity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    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:rfe:zbefri:v:41:y:2023:i:1:p:41-63. 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: Danijela Ujcic (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/efrijhr.html .

    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.