Board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in different disclosure environments

Abstract

This study investigates the firms' CSR disclosure by considering the joint effects of board gender diversity and secrecy culture in an international setting. Building on a sample of 14,185 firm-year observations from 43 countries during 2010–2019, this study shows that while board gender diversity and CSR disclosure are positively associated, countries' secrecy levels negatively affect CSR disclosure. However, we provide evidence that the higher female representation on the board of directors significantly attenuates the restrictive role of secrecy culture on the CSR disclosure level. In other words, the suppressive effect of national secrecy on CSR disclosure weakens firms with higher gender diversity on the board of directors. Our results are robust to several sensitivity checks and endogeneity problems. This study suggests that the reducing effects of national secrecy culture on firms' CSR disclosure level can be attenuated by utilizing internal governance mechanisms such as board gender diversity.