The Impact OF Board Diversity ON Esg: The Moderating Effect OF Legal Origins

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Ahmad Shatnawi , Jassim Ahmad Al-Gasawneh , Hasan Mansour , Adel Alresheedi , and Eyad Abdel Halym Hyasat

Abstract

This study examines the impact of board diversity on ESG and its related sub-dimensions, including, environmental score, social score, and governance score. It also examines the effect of legal origins/traditions on the relationships mentioned above, a topic that is not yet explored in prior related literature. Using an international sample for the years 2010-2020 and fixed effect model, our results show that board diversity has a positive and significant impact on ESG score, environmental score, social score, and governance score. This happened in the two considered legal origins/traditions: common law countries and code law countries and for all considered scores: ESG score, environmental score, social score, and governance score. Additional and robustness analyses based on the GMM-IV approach point out that the coefficient of board diversity is still positive and significant. In general, the findings support the arguments in the literature that the greater the diversity of the board, the greater resources available at the board, which contribute, in turn, to enable the boards to effectively address the business environment challenges thereby improving firms’ overall outcomes including ESG performance and its-related sub-dimensions.

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