BOARD GENDER DIVERSITY AND FIRM PERFORMANCE OF LISTED COMPANIES IN SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of board gender diversity on the firm performance of listed companies on the Saudi stock market (TADAWL). Therefore, the study involved conducting a comprehensive analysis by reviewing the previous literature related to the current research. The study entailed conducting empirical work to explore the relationship between gender diversity and financial performance. Measuring firm performance in the study relied on two variants, an Accounting-based measure and a Market-based measure. The study selected ten (10) companies listed on the Saudi stock market for the four-year period from 2016 to 2019 and a simple random sampling technique was employed to select the companies.

The previous literature about the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance produced varying, mixed results, while the findings of this study supported an insignificant or negative relation between board gender diversity and firm performance (measured by ROA and Tobin's q). However, it is recommended that companies should include women on the board in order to reach a wider talent pool, and also this is considered a social responsibility.