Does Board Gender Diversity Bring Better Financial and Governance Performances? An Empirical Investigation of Cases in Taiwan

Gender diversity, one of the core streams of top management team (TMT) diversity research, poses a theoretical argument valuable for firms—whether gender diversity among board members can lead to improved performance. Increased research attention on the relationship between gender diversity and the financial and governance performance of firms has produced inconclusive results. This study shapes the gender diversity of corporate boards by defining six compounding elements, which is the major contributor to the literature of gender diversity. This study aims to provide a more complete and precise assessment of the impact of gender diversity on a firm’s performance and corporate governance performance from the Taiwanese experience. The evidence in Taiwan suggests that increased board gender diversity does not have a positive effect on financial and governance performance. Only the ratio of female independent directors is found to have a significantly positive association with a firm’s performance, supporting prior findings that directors with greater independence are better able to perform their monitoring function and thus contribute to performance. The results also demonstrate that female directors having concurrent posts is a critical factor in enhancing corporate governance performance. Female directors with prior experience as serving directors or supervisors in other companies can offer diverse opinions and network ties, thus contributing to improved cohesion and corporate governance. The findings of this research can contribute to both literature and practice in board gender diversity issues and can serve as an empirical basis for enterprises in optimizing their board composition.