Literature / resource Imported

Does Board Gender Diversity Really Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Greek Listed Firms

Greece · Athens · National · See the Greece profile · See the Athens profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 60% 59/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

In recent decades, the contribution of board gender diversity to corporate performance has drawn the interest of researchers, politicians, and regulators. This paper examines whether board gender diversity affected the financial performance of 111 Greek listed firms from 2008 to

111

Greek listed firms studied (2008-2020)

33 %

Female board representation associated with maximised firm performance (Tobin's Q)

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Stavros E. Arvanitis,Evangelos G. Varouchas & George M. Agiomirgianakis — website
Power domain: Economic Power
Methods / tools: Gender Training, Awareness-raising
Region (NUTS): EL30
Keywords: corporate governance, board gender diversity, firm performance, female participation

Context

This study examines whether board gender diversity affected the financial performance of 111 Greek listed firms from 2008 to 2020, using a two-step system GMM estimator to address endogeneity, the standard approach in corporate-governance research.

Results

The study finds a positive, robust relation between board gender diversity and firm performance (ROA and Tobin's Q) across three diversity proxies, with an inverted U-shape peaking when female board representation reaches 33% — implying Greece's ad-hoc 25% quota (Law 4706/2020) may be sub-optimal.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

ProPEGE — Equal Leadership catalogue — accessed 2026-06-14
Practice website — accessed 2026-06-14
Promoter website — accessed 2026-06-14

Quality score: 59/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Quasi-experimental

Top 60% in this catalogue (794 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by ProPEGE consortium (Equal Leadership)

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability2/3

How readily the practice can be replicated or transferred to other contexts (graded 0–3).

Impact on gender equality1/1

Whether the practice demonstrably improved gender-equality outcomes.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

Whether the outcomes were formally evaluated or measured.

Achievement / evidence1/1

The strength of documented evidence that the practice worked.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

How well gender equality is embedded across strategy, continuity and financing.

Curator validation1/1

The ProPEGE curators' validation of quality, scope and final approval.

Cite this

Evidoria. Does Board Gender Diversity Really Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Greek Listed Firms. Persistent ID: 709c6cce-2d98-4be1-88f3-79a35d745840.

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