Does Gender Diversity Matter at the Board Level? Firm’s Financial Performance and Gender Diversity in Sri Lankan-Listed Firms
Description
The generally accepted practices and the governance-driven context influence enhancement through board independence and governance, a vital dimension in the 21st century. Additionally, board diversity has been heavily emphasized with the director heterogeneity, which includes a mix of age, gender, education, ethnicity and other diverse characteristics to be present in directors. Although increasing levels of diversity are evident worldwide, “Board Gender Diversity” within the Sri Lankan context remains low with only 8.4% of female representation on boards. Despite various benefits recognized by scholars globally by having females on boards, it is expected to achieve inclusion of better firm reputation, greater board independence and better firm performances; still it is observed that representation of women remains low in many entities under consideration. Vulnerabilities of female representation at the board level on the performance have been the research problem and it is to explore reasons for the poor female representation. The study conducted aligned with the deductive approach and it is to explore a survey strategy to formulate the research the sample has been recognised from the public companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) from 2019 to 2022. This research presents empirical evidence and carefully calculated and examined evidence of whether board diversity is associated with improved financial performance in line with the research conducted in Western countries. It further reviewed that there is a greater impact of female participation at the board level over the performance of the entities in Sri Lanka.