A Study of Environmental Policies and Regulations, Governance Structures and Environmental Performance: The Role of Female Directors
Publication date
2018Keyword
Business strategyEnvironmental policies and regulations
Environmental management
Sustainable development
Governance structures
Environmental performance
Corporate board gender diversity
Female directors
China
Publicly listed corporations
Publicly listed companies
Peer-Reviewed
yes
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This paper seeks to contribute to the existing business strategy and the environment literature by examining the effect of governance structures on environmental performance within a unique context of improving environmental governance, policies, regulations and management. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which corporate board gender diversity, including the proportion, age and level of education of female directors, affect environmental performance of Chinese publicly listed corporations. Using one of the largest Chinese datasets to-date, consisting of a sample of 383 listed A-shares from 2011 to 2015 (i.e., observations of 1,674), our findings are three-fold. First, we find that the proportion and age of female directors have a positive effect on the overall corporate environmental performance. Second, our findings indicate that the proportion and age of female directors also have a positive effect on the three individual environmental performance components, namely environmental (i) strategy, (ii) implementation and (iii) disclosure, respectively. Finally, and by contrast, we do not find any evidence that suggests that the level of education of female directors has any impact on environmental performance, neither the overall environmental performance measure nor its individual components. Our findings have important implication for regulators and policy-makers. Our evidence is robust to controlling for alternative measures, other governance and firm-level control variables, and possible endogeneities. We interpret our findings within a multi-theoretical framework that draws insights from agency, legitimacy, neo-institutional, resource dependence, stakeholder, and tokenism theoretical perspectives.Version
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Elmagrhi M, Ntim CG, Elamer AA and Zhang Q (2018) A Study of Environmental Policies and Regulations, Governance Structures and Environmental Performance: The Role of Female Directors. Business Strategy and the Environment. Accepted for publication.Link to publisher’s version
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10990836Type
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