Board Age and Gender Diversity: A Test of Competing Linear and Curvilinear Predictions

By Muhammad Ishtiaq Ali, Yin Lu Ng. 2014

239 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The inconsistent findings of past board diversity research demand a test of competing linear and curvilinear diversity–performance predictions. This research focuses on board age and gender diversity, and presents a positive linear prediction based on resource dependence theory, a negative linear prediction based on social identity theory, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear prediction based on the integration of resource dependence theory with social identity theory. The predictions were tested using archival data on 288 large organizations listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, with a 1-year time lag between diversity (age and gender) and performance (employee productivity and return on assets). The results indicate a positive linear relationship between gender diversity and employee productivity, a negative linear relationship between age diversity and return on assets, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between age diversity and return on assets. The findings provide additional evidence on the business case for board gender diversity and refine the business case for board age diversity.

Subfields: Accounting, Gender Studies, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/81d2053cfbe8b70cbdd482c164d629a2aeb0c562

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In Accounting

In Gender Studies

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Board diversity and firm performance: evidence from the U.K. SMEs (2017, methodology): “Following Ali, Ng, and Kulik (2014), we measure age diversity by the coefficient of variation formula.”
Board Gender Diversity and Corporate Response to Sustainability Initiatives: Evidence from the Carbon Disclosure Project (2015, background): “To address the conflicting findings in the studies mentioned above, Ali et al. (2014) test competing linear and curvilinear models to test the diversity and performance relationship.”
Age diversity, directors' personal values, and bank performance (2016, background): “However, age-diverse boards are also found to harm firm social performance (Hafsi and Turgut, 2013), profitability (Ali et al., 2014), and strategic change (Tarus and Aime, 2014) due to the communication breakdown and conflicts among directors.”
Comprehensive Board Diversity and Quality of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: Evidence from an Emerging Market (2017, methodology): “We use coefﬁcient of variation for the interval or continuous variables (i.e., age and tenure) (Ali et al. 2014; Fan 2012; Hafsi and Turgut 2013).”