FEMALE DIRECTIONS AND FAMILY TIES: EFFECTS ON PERFORMANCE

Back to Page Authors: Emma García-Meca, Domingo Javier Santana

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Keywords: gender diversity, corporate governance, performance, boards

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Abstract: We study the control of the dominant family owner's effect on the appointment of family and non-family women directors and examine the effect of these women directors on firm value. Our results show that when the voting rights of the dominant family are low, they appoint more female directors with family associations. The results also indicate that when family voting rights are high, family founders may be more interested in the advisory role of directors, thus appointing more non-family women directors to benefit from their industry-specific expertise and objective advice. Additionally, we find robust evidence of an opposite influence of family and non-family directors on firm performance, with inverted-U and U-shaped associations, respectively.

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