Female Directors and Corporation Diversification: Evidences from China

More and more female directors are elected as the board member in Chinese public listed corporations. This common phenomenon has impact on different aspects of corporate behaviors. In this paper, we select a sample of public list Chinese companies from 2001 to 2010 to analyze how the female directors influence the corporation’s diversification behavior. The study found that: (1) female directors significantly reduce corporation diversification; (2) after we classify female directors into independent directors and non-independent directors, we found predominantly non-independent female directors significantly reduced corporation diversification; (3) the results of further analysis revealed that women in key positions of directors (including the chairman and chief executive office) have the most significant impact in reducing the diversified of corporation compared with other factors. This paper studies the female directors’ role in corporation’s diversification which help us to better understand how different types of directors have influences on corporation diversification.