CEO attributes, board diversity, corporate social performance

Abstract

After the UN (United Nations) suggested sustainable and development goals (SDGs) in 2015, achieving sustainable development becomes crucial. As a result, issues of environment, human rights, equality have arisen globally. Among several stakeholders, firms have a vital role in performing sustainable development. To meet the demands of stakeholder groups and obtain competitive advantages, firms have endeavored to deal with social change. In this respect, scholars have given their attention to appointing minority leaders such as women and ethnic minorities. By using a sample of US firms in Fortune Global 500 for the 2011-2018 period, this study focuses on minority CEOs and board diversity. Specifically, this study defines foreign chief executive officer (CEO) and female CEO as minority CEOs and examines the relationship between minority CEOs and firms’ corporate social performance (CSP). Also, we focus on board diversity in nationality and gender and examine the relationship between board diversity and CSP. Empirical results provide support for most of our hypotheses except for female CEO. Our findings contribute to previous literature by proving the impact of minority CEOs and board diversity on firms’ CSP.