Do Board Gender Diversity and Non-Executive Directors Affect CSR Reporting? Insight from Agency Theory Perspective

Our paper provides a valuable contribution by exploring the following complex phenomenon: Do board gender diversity and reputational incentives of non-executive directors affect corporate social responsibility(CSR) reporting? To this end, we use panel data regression (fixed effect) to examine the above relationship by using data from the 2009 to 2019 timeperiod, by using data from non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. To deal with the possibility of an endogeneity problem, we have used the two-stage least square (2SLS) regression model. Our empirical results suggest that board gender diversity positively affects CSR reporting. Our study has found that the reputational incentives of non-executive directors improve the CSR reporting. Furthermore, reputational incentives of non-executive directors (NEDs) and CSR reporting are moderated by firm size, this effect being stronger for large firms. Our findings also show that the firm size positively moderates the relationship between gender diversity in boards and CSR reporting. The control variables, namely board size, board member average tenure, leverage, “big 4” and return on assets, have an impact on the firm’s CSR reporting. Therefore, our results contribute towards new aspects in respect to the emerging literature concerning the system of non-executive directors, protection of stakeholder’s interests, and CSR reporting, especially as regards China. Furthermore, our results are robust as concerns alternative measures of variables under consideration.