Does Gender Diversity on Board Lead to Risk-Taking? Empirical Evidence from Tunisia
Résumé
It is well documented in economic, psychological and social literatures and the few recent studies in finance that women are more risk averse than men. The current study investigates the influence of board gender-diversity in firm risk taking in a developing market.
Using a sample of Tunisian firms during 1997-2010, findings show that more women sitting on the board more is the cash held by the firm. However, we detect no significant relationship between gender-diversity and risk-taking variables when it comes to analyze financing and investing policies’ firms, except cash-holding. When we take into account women directors’ affiliation, we show that the presence of politically connected women and State officers’ women on board increases the cash holding and investment opportunities.