A Meta‐Analytical Study of Cultural Dimensions Moderating the Relationship Between Board Diversity and Environmental Performance

Inconsistent findings on the relationship between board diversity attributes and environmental performance in the extant literature warrant a comprehensive meta‐analytical assessment. Therefore, this research is targeted to examine the relationship between board diversity attributes—such as age, gender, education, nationality, and ethnicity—and corporate environmental performance through meta‐analysis. Additionally, it sheds light on the moderating influences of cultural dimensions—individualism, masculinity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation, and indulgence—on these relationships as national‐level cultural factors were rarely examined in the extant literature on corporate environmental performance. This research relied on 182 effect sizes from 91 studies published in Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranked journals in the last two decades. Mean correlation coefficients and random‐effect meta‐regressions were used to test the hypothesized relationships. All the board diversity attributes have a significant positive relationship with environmental performance. Concerning moderating effects, cultural dimensions of high power distance and uncertainty avoidance strengthen the positive relationship between board diversity attributes and environmental performance, whereas high individualism and indulgence dimensions weaken them. Masculinity and long‐term orientations yielded mixed results. In general, the results suggest that policies aimed at promoting board diversity can improve corporate environmental performance. However, the effectiveness of board diversity attributes in promoting corporate environmental performance is influenced by cultural factors. Since this research exclusively relies on articles published in English‐language ABS‐ranked journals, it may limit the generalizability of the findings by excluding potentially relevant studies published in other languages in other institutional and cultural contexts.