Gender Diversity and Firm Performance: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Gender diversity and firm performance, is among the new but challenging topics of research in management sciences. Many researchers have studied the role of gender diversity in enhancing firms’ performance in developed economies (see for example, Dwyer et. al, 2003; and Kang et al, 2010). Existing literature on this subject is rare in emerging economies and to the best of author’s knowledge; this is the first study on relationship of gender diversity and firm’s performance in Pakistani context. Present study focuses on the impact of presence of female directors on corporate performance using a sample of 395 listed nonfinancial companies of Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) Pakistan from 2004 to 2009. Estimated results indicate that ratio of female directors is negatively related with firm performance.