Women on corporate boards and corporate financial and non-financial performance: A systematic literature review and future research agenda

Abstract

This paper provides an up-to-date and comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) of the existing research on women on corporate boards (WOCBs) and corporate financial and non-financial performance. The aim is to synthesise and extend current understanding of both the existing (i) theoretical (i.e., economic, psychological and social) perspectives and (ii) empirical evidence on the (a) multi-level (i.e., individual-, social-, firm- and country-level) antecedents of WOCBs, and (b) the effects that WOCBs have on a wide range of corporate financial and non-financial performance. We achieve this by adopting a three-step SLR approach to analyse/review one of the largest SLR datasets to be employed to date, consisting of 634 mixed, qualitative, quantitative and theoretical studies conducted in over 100 countries from more than 10 disciplines (e.g., accounting, finance, economics and governance) from 1981 to 2019 and published in 270 top-ranked journals. Our findings are as follows. First, a large number of existing studies are descriptive and/or they draw on single rather than multi-theoretical perspectives. Second, existing studies have focused on firm-level rather than country-level antecedents of WOCBs. Third, observable methodological limitations include the dearth of qualitative, mixed-methods and cross-cultural/country studies. Finally, we outline opportunities for future WOCBs research.