How does diversity of the board members affect firm performance? The case of Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Schneider, Fernando Zanotti
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/27421
• topic: corporate strategy; corporate governance; board of directors; .diversity.; firm performance.; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

This research investigates the relationship between the diversity on the composition of Board of Directors and the financial performance of Brazilian listed companies in BOVESPA, in a corporate segment called “Novo Mercado”. Despite being an increasingly studied topic abroad, Brazil has limited studies in diversity when compared with other countries. In a global level, most of the studies regarding this topic are focused on the gender composition of the Board. In this article, diversity is measured by four variables: gender, age, education and independence (or not) of the Board members. Analyzing a sample of 119 companies in Brazil, 967 individuals as board members, covering the period of 2013-2015, this quantitative study has as its core method an ordinary least squares (OLS) for estimating the parameters in a linear regression model, using as controls variables board size, industry (economic segment), the types of capital of listed companies, categorizing them as State, Private and Private Holding. In accordance with the theory, the research finds that a more diverse board (in terms of gender) has positive impact in the financial performance, measured by Return over Assets. In the other hand, the results show that diversity in terms of education and age has a negative impact in terms of ROA. In addition to the overall contribution to the discussion of diversity on Boards of Directors, the findings of the research may help shareholders, stakeholders and policy makers using such knowledge to use the Board more efficiently and strategically.