Impact of board gender diversity on performance of public sector vis-à-vis private sector banks in India

Abstract

Purpose The Companies Act of 2013 stressed upon gender diversity in the board of management considering the significant role of women toward the success of an organization. Following it, both public and private sector banks in India implemented the act from 2015 onward. This study aims to investigate whether its implementation has improved board gender diversity uniformly across public and private sector banks. Furthermore, the authors study the impact of board gender diversity on the performance of public and private sector banks in India. Design/methodology/approach Secondary data on listed Indian commercial banks for the period 2015–2021 have been used in this study that encompasses 15 commercial and 12 public sector banks. Return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q are considered as the banking performance indicators in this study, while gender diversity of the board is measured by using Blau index. Furthermore, generalized method of moments has been adopted to analyze the effect of board gender diversity on performance of the Indian banking sector. Findings Empirical results exhibit that board gender diversity has been gradually improving since 2015 in both public and private sector banks in India. However, board diversity in case of public sector banks is seen to be lower than that of private sector banks. Furthermore, this study found a significant impact of board diversity on the performance indicators of both public and private sector banks. Practical implications This study gives a clear picture that board diversity of both public and private banks has remained quite low over the years. Apparently, women representation has been found to be less than 50% throughout the period of 2015–2021. As board diversity has significant impact on banking performance, it is important on the part of banks to take proper steps to improve the board diversity. Originality/value This study has added to the existing literature by highlighting on the divergence between gender diversity across public and private sector banks in India. It emphasizes on the need to improve gender diversity by a significant increase in the proportion of women in the board to create an impact on decision-making.