Board Gender Diversity and Environmental, Social and Governance Performance; Evidence From 10 Sectors and 10 European Union Countries

ABSTRACT This paper examines the influence of different measures of the board gender diversity (BGD) on the Environmental, Social, and Governance disclosure quality of 253 firms from 10 sectors in 10 European countries (EC) during the 2011–2021 period to check which pillar of the ESG receives more favorable attention from gender diversity (GD) and to research if this relationship holds similarly across countries and sectors. A multiple 2‐way firm and year effects static panel model with different proxies of GD was used. Ordinary least squares as a baseline technique was applied. For robustness check, one‐step system GMM was applied on the dynamic version of the considered models. Drawing on resource dependency theory, agency theory, and legitimacy theory, this study finds that GD influences ESG performance. At the country and sector level, the results are either insignificant or mixed. The governance dimension consistently shows a positive effect across both countries and sectors side.