WOMEN ON BOARD AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

This paper analyzes whether having a woman on the Board of Directors can affect a North American firm’s performance. We compare firms with and without female directors on the board and assess their performance. Our two contradicting results—namely, that the presence of women on board negatively affects a firm’s performance and that firms with women on board outperformed ones without women on board—show that further research is needed to verify the true nature of this relationship.