Board of directors’ gender diversity in medium-sized family firms. Evidence from Italy

The paper analyses the involvement of women in the governance of non-listed medium-sized family firms pursuing a twofold objective: 1) understand how the presence of women on the governance of medium-sized family firms has evolved in recent years; 2) investigate if and how some firms’ governance characteristics can influence the boards of directors’ gender diversity of these companies. This paper contributes to enrich studies on women in family businesses by focusing on women’s involvement in governance and board of directors’ gender diversity. We focused on medium-sized family firms and posited two hypotheses. Hp1. A greater presence of the family in the ownership of the firm positively affects the board of directors' gender diversity. Hp2. First generation family firms negatively influences the board of directors' gender diversity. Hypotheses were tested by a regression analysis carried out on a sample of 233 Italian medium-sized family businesses, analysed from 2007-2014. Before testing hypotheses, we conducted a descriptive analysis to understand better whether and how the involvement of women in governance roles had changed over time. While previous empirical research mainly refers to large and listed firms, we add knowledge to the literature on medium-sized family businesses by analysing their specific characteristics. In addition, our study increases extant literature on family firms by considering the influence of their specific governance attributes and contributing to recent debate on the heterogeneity among family firms.