The impact of board gender diversity on firm risk-taking behaviour: the moderating role of home country culture.

Abstract: This paper is focused on the effect board gender diversity has on firm risk-taking behaviour within the domain of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). As existing literature has produced mixed findings concerning board effectiveness in the corporate context, it is suggested that external contingencies might have an impact on the influence of female board representativeness. In response, this study examines the impact of board gender diversity on the degree of acquisitiveness by taking a crosscultural perspective. Building on social identity theory, this paper predicts that female representativeness at the board level is negatively associated with a firm’s acquisitiveness. Additionally, this study theorizes and empirically tests the moderating effect of culture in terms of gender egalitarianism and uncertainty avoidance. The panel data used in this analysis consists of 111 Global 500 firms from 17 different countries, covering the period 2012 - 2016. Results in this paper support the notion that board gender diversity is negatively associated with acquisitiveness and that culture in terms of gender egalitarianism has a weakening effect on this relationship. Moreover, this paper contributes to existing research by offering new insights onto the role culture plays in the relationship between board gender diversity and firm risk-taking behaviour and, as a result, helps to reconcile mixed findings of previous literature focused on this topic.