Board diversity and financial fragility: Evidence from European banks

Farag, Hisham and Mallin, Christine (2017) Board diversity and financial fragility: Evidence from European banks. International Review of Financial Analysis, 49. 98–112. ISSN 1057-5219

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Abstract

In the wake of the recent debt crisis in Europe, we investigate the influence of board diversity on financial fragility and performance of European banks. Corporate governance codes in Europe recommend unitary and dual-board systems; therefore, we believe that the influence of board diversity may vary across governance mechanisms and that no other studies have addressed these variations and their influence on financial fragility across European countries. The results show that a critical mass of female representation on both the supervisory board and the board of directors may reduce banks’ vulnerability to financial crisis. However, interestingly, we find evidence that female directors on the management board are not risk averse. We argue that the degree of risk taking for female directors may vary based on their roles (non-executive or executive) and that female and male executive directors may have the same risk taking behaviour. Our empirical results provide guidelines to the regulators in Europe with respect to the recently approved proposal by the European Parliament on female representation.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: corporate governance,corporate finance,board diversity,board structure
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Accounting, Finance and Governance (former - to 2017)
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 04 Jan 2017 00:03
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 02:03
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/61901
DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2016.12.002

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