Gender Diversity on the Board - BI Norwegian Business School

Percent
GRA 19001 Master Thesis
share of observations in our sample. Therefore, we choose not to draw any conclusions
based on these findings.
Figure 4.3 illustrates the distribution of female stockholder-elected directors of all
observations in our sample. Obviously, the distribution is skewed to the right.
Figure 4.3: Distribution of female stockholder-elected directors for large nonlisted firms
80%
60%
40%
20%
-2
0
2
4
6
Female stockholder-elected directors
Figure 4.3 shows the distribution of female stockholder-elected directors in the sample for large nonlisted firms. The
Y-axis measures the number of observations, while the X-axis is the number of female stockholder-elected directors.
4.2 Independent variables
In this section descriptive statistics of all independent variables are presented to obtain a
better understanding of our data set. The independent variables used are return on assets
(ROA), fraction held by largest family owner and CEO-gender. Firm age and firm size
are used as control variables. During our sample period, no governance codes are
implemented for nonlisted firms. As stated under descriptive statistics, we find an
increase in the share of female stockholder-elected directors from 7% to 10%. Since
there are no indications of substantial time effects, we do not control for time in the
regression. In appendix 2.A4 we show descriptive statistics for all variables.
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