Article

Does board gender diversity affect renewable energy consumption?

Muhammad AtifDepartment of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University, Sydney, AustraliaMohammed HossainCollege of Business Administration, Gulf University for Science and Technology, West Mishref, Hawalli, KuwaitMd Samsul AlamLeicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester, UKMarc GoergenEuropean Corporate Governance Institute, Brussels, Belgium

2020en

ABI

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of board gender diversity on renewable energy consumption. Using a panel of 11,677 firm-year observations from the USA for 2008–2016, we find a positive relationship between board gender diversity and renewable energy consumption. Moreover, boards require two or more women for women to have a significant impact on renewable energy consumption, consistent with the critical mass theory. Further, we document that the positive impact of female directors on renewable energy consumption stems from female independent rather than female executive directors. Finally, we find a positive effect of the interaction between renewable energy consumption and board gender diversity on firm financial performance. Our findings are robust to different identification strategies and estimation techniques.

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101665

Citations and references

Cited by 20 references

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