Board gender diversity, CSR strategy, and eco-friendly initiatives in the transportation and logistics sector

The criticism concerning environmental externalities of the transportation and logistics sector is mounting; hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether board gender diversity stimulates eco-friendly practices and to test whether a CSR strategy moderates this relationship in this sector. The data for the study were retrieved from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database between 2002 and 2019 and fixed-effects regression analysis was executed. The results indicate that female directors are influential in all aspects of eco-friendly practices while they have the greatest impact on eco-innovation. Furthermore, pursuing a CSR strategy fosters the sector's commitment to eco-friendly practices. Moreover, moderation analysis revealed that while CSR strategy moder-ates the association between board gender diversity and eco-innovation, moderation is not significant for resource use and emission reduction. However, when we use Shannon and Blau indices, we found stronger evidence of the moderating effect of CSR strategy between board gender diversity and eco-friendly practices. In addition, further tests indicated the existence of some quadratic relationships between test variables and eco-friendly practices. The originality of the study is arising from several aspects such as focusing exclusively on the transportation and logistics sector, adopting three proxies of board gender diversity (i.e., female proportion on board, Shannon Index, and Blau Index), exploring the interaction effect of two governance mechanisms on eco-friendly practices, and testing quadratic relationships between gender diversity and CSR strategy and eco-friendly practices. Furthermore, it investigates very specific environmental topics (i.e., eco-innovation, resource usage, and emissions) rather than CSR performance in general.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of board gender diversity on eco-friendly practices in the transportation and logistics sector, and examines the moderating effect of CSR strategy. The results reveal that female directors have significant influence on all aspects of eco-friendly practices, particularly in eco-innovation. It is also found that pursuing a CSR strategy enhances the sector's commitment to eco-friendly practices.