Title: Gender diversity and firm performance: evidence from French boardrooms

Authors: Sonia Boukattaya; Abdelwahed Omri

Addresses: Institut Supérieur de Gestion de Tunis (ISG Tunis), GEF-2A Lab, Université de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia ' Institut Supérieur de Gestion de Tunis (ISG Tunis), GEF-2A Lab, Université de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to examine the relevance of the increase of women's representivity on the boards and its effect on the improvement of the firm performance. In fact, since 2011, a new law required that 40% of French firms' directors be women. To identify this effect, we use a sample of French firms listed on SBF120 for the period 2011-2016. The main finding is a positive relationship between the percentage of women on boards and Tobin's Q. In addition, the results highlight that the compliance with quota law has no effect on firm performance. As a consequence, we can explain this by the recency of quota law and low adoption by firms in our sample.

Keywords: board composition; corporate governance; female directors; gender diversity; firm financial performance; quota.

DOI: 10.1504/EMJM.2018.096456

EuroMed Journal of Management, 2018 Vol.2 No.4, pp.356 - 368

Received: 27 Feb 2018
Accepted: 10 Sep 2018

Published online: 03 Dec 2018 *

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