How Does Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards Affect the Firm Financial Performance?

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to determine whether gender diversity in corporate boards has an impact on firm financial performance of Swedish OMX-listed firms. The study is conducted in Sweden, as there is frequent political pressure of a board gender quota, but no major research to base the discussion on. Previous research finds both positive and negative relationship between firm financial performance and the female gender variable; depending on market studied, time period and political climate. A common finding is that gender diversity has no impact on financial performance. Our study is based on panel data for 255 companies over a period of six years. We find that there is not a statistically significant relationship between neither ROA nor Tobin’s Q and the female gender variable; which indicates that no clear link can be seen in the gender diversity-performance relationship.