Is woman better cost saver Study on board gender diversity and cost of Research Proposal

Is woman better cost saver Study on board gender diversity and cost of capital in Hong Kong - Research Proposal Example In addition, many organisations witnessed better degree of management and governance with involvement of women workforce in boards and management teams (Farrell and Hersch 85-106; Standard Chartered Bank 1-60). In a number of countries, specifically, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States, gender diversity in a company’s board is being given a lot of importance due to its positive impact on the company’s performance (Terjesen and Singh 55-63). The legal and regulatory organisations have become a constant source of encouragement for board diversity. In Europe, jurisdictions have enacted laws that favours gender diversity in company’s board. Similar trend has been noticed in other countries, namely, Australia, Canada, Norway, Singapore and the United States (Grosvold, Brammer and Rayton 344-357; Terjesen and Singh 55-63). In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission made it official in 2009 for listed firms to disclose about their board formation, involvement of gender diversity in its boards and its impact (UK Government; Weir and Laing 86-95). In 2012, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange pointed greater emphasis on gender diversity as an important component of corporate governance framework. In Hong Kong, board diversity is considered important by internal as well as external shareholders in various listed companies due to certain reasons: Notwithstanding that gender diversity on board has gained importance in many countries nowadays, it has been understood so far that all existing literatures have mainly focused on gender diversity in companies located in western countries, while very little research has been done on Asian countries, such as, China, especially in Hong Kong. The aim of the research proposal is to evaluate the degree of gender diversity in the boards of Hong Kong’s listed companies and their impact on