The Influence of Gender Diversity on Boards of Directors and the Institutional and Cultural Context on Business Innovation: A Study in the European Context

Considering innovation as a determining factor for the competitiveness of companies, about which there has been inconclusive evidence about the factors that influence it, such as the gender diversity of the Boards of Directors, the aim of this study is to analyze what is the impact of the presence of women on the Boards of Directors on the innovation of companies, given the institutional and cultural contexts of the European countries. Using a multitheoretical analysis, a panel data set was analyzed, covering an analysis period of teen years (2012–2022). The sample consists of 25 countries belonging to the European Union that are on the list of the 50 most innovative countries in the world. The results obtained from the regression model, employing the random effects method, denote a negative and significant association between board gender diversity and business innovation, On the other hand, both institutional and cultural contexts were found to be related to corporate innovation, with a positive and significant relationship with the investor protection index, which corroborates the evidence that countries with a strong institutional environment experience higher levels of corporate innovation (Kayalvizhi and Thenmozhi, Emerging Markets Review 34:175–191, 2018) and the negative and significant relationship with the cultural dimension of Masculinity which, contrary to the first result mentioned, supports the presence of female characteristics in the offspring of higher levels of innovation, which suggests that the percentage of women on Boards is still low to allow companies to take advantage of the benefits of gender diversity compared to their presence in society in general.