CEO Tenure, CEO Gender Diversity, and the Quality of Carbon Reporting: Empirical Evidence From New Zealand

ABSTRACT The study examines whether and how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) tenure and gender diversity influence the quality of carbon reporting (QCR), an increasingly significant dimension of non‐financial reporting in the era of climate change risk. Analysing 578 firm‐year observations from 102 companies listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange between 2015 and 2020, and using multivariate regression analysis, the empirical findings reveal that longer CEO tenure is negatively associated with QCR. The results suggest that long tenured leadership appointments do hinder transparency and foster opportunistic and unreliable carbon reporting practices. This negative relationship intensifies under conditions of CEO duality and elevated agency costs. By contrast, female CEOs demonstrate significantly higher levels of QCR, highlighting the role of gender diversity in fostering more rigorous and credible carbon reporting. These findings remain robust across multiple robustness specifications including firm fixed effects, instrumental variable analysis, Heckman selection models, and alternative measures. The study contributes to carbon accounting literature by providing evidence on how CEO tenure undermines reporting credibility and transparency while executive‐level gender diversity enhances such endeavour, and by identifying the boundary conditions under which these effects operate. The findings also offer practical insights for regulators and policymakers seeking to enhance transparency in carbon reporting.