Determinants of Companies’ Board Composition in Emerging Markets

Abstract

This paper examines the determinants of female board representation for a sample of Brazilian listed companies for the year of 2018. Using count data models, we find that greater firm size, performance and board size lead to higher woman representation on companies’ boards. Also, that private control is associated with a lower number of women on boards. Most studies related to board composition focus on independent directors and are conducted in a developed countries’ setting. This work contributes to the extant literature in understanding what drives woman representation on corporate boards in an emerging market context and also would help to support the definition and implementation of gender diversity policies by showing possible impacts.