Board gender diversity and corporate risk taking

This study examines the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate risk taking among Malaysian companies. Pooled Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and Panel Data regression are used in this study to examine the relationship between these variables. The selected samples include of Malaysian listed companies in the main board Bursa Malaysia. Final sample consists of 634 non-financial companies with 6,816 firm year observations for a sample period of 15 years that is from the year 2000 until 2014. Results indicate that the presence of women directors can mitigate corporate risk taking while; male-only board leads to higher level of firm risk taking. These results are consistently significant when different measures are used to proxy for risk taking.
Consistently, both pooled OLS and panel data regressions confirm the findings. In addition, fixed effects panel data regression is found to better explained the hypothesised relationship than random effects. This study concludes that board gender diversity can be used as a monitoring agent to mitigate corporate risk taking, supporting the regulator’s initiative to promote gender diversity in the corporate boardrooms.