Board of directors and female representation: effect on Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Firm Performance

Georges BIDI, PhD

Abstract

The responsible actions can allow corporate citizens to improve their reputation and a better management of stakeholders’ relations. One of the board’s roles is convincing shareholders and investors that investment in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is consistent with their interests. A growing presence of women is observed on boards. Women directors are very sensitive to issues related to CSR reporting and firm performance. The aim of the paper is to study the relationship between corporate CSR reporting and firms’ performance according to whether they have or not women on their boards. We investigate the moderating effect of women directorship on the relationship between CSR reporting and performance for a sample of French listed companies belonging to the SBF 120 index during the period 2001-2010. The results show that the presence of at least one woman on the board impacts positively CSR reporting and firm performance.