Board Gender Diversity and Internationalization: The Moderating Effect of Family Ownership

The present work aims to highlight the relationship between board gender diversity and firms’ internationalization degree and to investigate whether family ownership exerts a moderating role on the relationship above mentioned. While a greater presence of women on board, on one hand, increases diversity, that, in turn, may stimulate firms’ internationalization, on the other hand, it may increase firms’ risk aversion, reducing risky investments, such as those in internationalization. Besides, since in the Italian context families represent the main controlling owner, this work investigates its moderating role on the relationship in the exam. Family ownership may negatively influence the board gender diversity-firms’ internationalization degree relationship because of family members’ desire to protect their socio-emotional wealth. Basing on a sample of Italian listed firms, the empirical findings of this work show that women directors ratio negatively affects firms’ export intensity and family ownership strengthens this relationship.