The Role of Women in Sustainability Reporting
Benjamin Iorsue Awen, Onipe Adabenege Yahaya
Abstract
The primary focus of this study is to identify the decisive roles played by women in corporate sustainability reporting in Nigeria. The identified independent variables of the study are female CEO, female directors, female membership of audit committee, nomination committee, remuneration committee, and risk committee. Sustainability reporting is the dependent variable, measured by dummy. Secondary data was collected through content analysis from the annual reports and accounts of 134 listed firms from the Main Board of the Nigerian Exchange, for 15 years (2008-2022). Five (5) hypotheses were developed and tested through multiple linear regression and the correlation coefficients analysis was used to identify the relationship between the dependent variable (sustainability reporting) and independent variables (women directors). The findings of the study show that FCEO, female member of remuneration committee, listing age and firm size are statistically significant, whereas female member of audit committee, female directors, female member of risk committee have statistically insignificant impacts. The study is limited by the sample size. It is expected that further research can increase the total sample of companies. Also, future research may add to the study period. Our results show that the R<sup>2</sup> is 45.58%. Further research is expected to add other characteristic variables that may influence the decisions made in a firm. Also, limitations of the study may be in terms of data and methodology and possible omission of some variables.