Gender diversity and firm performance in seeking for sustainable development

Abstract

This paper is focused on identifying possible relations between companies’ performance and their board structure and managerial team after the recent world financial crisis, in an attempt to identify possible ways to support corporate sustainable development. Companies with board and management team gender diversity tend to score higher in terms of ROA and ROS than companies where men are in charge. Women in managerial positions in large companies tend to relate better with customers and help sales improvement, but in companies that are old and big the women participation in the process of strategic decision making is not particularly encouraged.