Purpose – Do women contribute to performance of companies on which they serve as board of directors? Many prior studies examine this issue, but no consensus is reached on the benefits of women taking on leadership positions. The present study considers this thorny issue from a slightly different perspective. Does the association between gender diversity and business performance vary across sectors and economic cycles?

Design/methodology/approach – The sample for this study was derived from the firms included in the S&P Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) 300 Index, and the study period of 2004–2016 allowed authors to consider the effects of different sectors as well as different economic cycles on the relationship between gender diversity of boards and business performance. The authors consider the Australian context, which is somewhat unique from the other Western countries, as quotas on boards of directors are not made mandatory and the corporate governance practices are principle-based rather than rule-based.

Findings – Employing panel data models, at the aggregate level, the authors find no evidence of board gender diversity impacting business performance. Consideration of sectoral differences and economic cycles in the empirical analyses yielded additional insights. In particular, gender diversity has a beneficial association with performance for businesses in the services and financial sectors after the changes to corporate governance guidelines relating to diversity in 2010. These economic benefits, however, are not evidenced in the resources sector.

Research limitations/implications – These findings offer support for critical mass and resource dependence theories.

Practical implications – The findings of this study have implications for inclusion and diversity policies of businesses and the society. Specifically, the findings offer support for gender diversity of corporate boards of directors.

Originality/value – This study highlights that women bring their unique skills and experiences to create economic value in sectors where they traditionally have more experience and opportunities.

The conflicts encountered by the owner-managers in family-owned firms in Malaysia are explored in this chapter. Drawing upon the theoretical lens from agency, stewardship, resource-based and socioemotional wealth theories the lived experiences of conflicts on the basis of type, nature and extent by the owner-managers of family-owned firms are investigated deeply through in-depth interviews. Macro and micro thematic categories of relative importance are elicited by employing qualitative data analysis. Results obtained indicate that owner-managers in family-owned firms experience task, process, internal and/or external-oriented conflicts alongside affective, conative and/or cognitive nature of conflicts to a lesser or greater extent on the basis of gender and ethnicity leading conflict triads. The study provides important implications for theory, practice and family business environment.

Although migrant entrepreneurship has existed for many decades and has contributed to various economic dimensions, it has not been thoroughly investigated, and the theoretical underpinnings that can explain migrant entrepreneurship lack clear articulation and argument. The overarching aim of this study is to use the disadvantage, interactive and cultural theoretical models to understand in depth the uptake, enactment and embeddedness of migrant entrepreneurship. A qualitative case study methodology is employed to gather information on the lived experiences of migrant entrepreneurs to determine the influence of temporal, spatial and contextual dimensions. The distinct characteristics of migrant entrepreneurship in regional Australia are identified, and the implications for practice, policy, theory, methodology and society are discussed.

Corporate risk has implications for investors, employees and other stakeholders. Previous studies from economics and psychology contend that women take fewer risks than men; therefore, the attempts to increase female representation in corporate boardrooms and improve the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of firms across the world for the last two decades raise questions about risk-taking in corporate firms as women start to influence board functioning and help to shape corporate strategy. However, the previous literature provides conflicting evidence on the association between business risk and gender diversity. Similarly, the results of previous investigations of the impact of investments in CSR on business risk are not conclusive. Given the lack of clarity of the outcomes of the interactions between gender diversity, CSR and business risk, the objectives of this article are to scrutinise the effects of diversity and CSR on business risk-taking and to specifically consider the effects of the interaction of CSR and gender diversity on business risk. The unique contribution of this study is to investigate the interaction effects of gender diversity and CSR on business risk-taking. Given the gender diversity initiatives over the last two decades and the increased attention on CSR, this study focuses on the constituent firms from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) 300 Index for the study period 2005 to 2019. Empirical investigations that employ the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) find that gender has a significant negative association and CSR has a significant positive association with business risk. Further, the interaction effect of gender diversity and CSR is negative for business risk, specifically for businesses in the services sector. Similarly, the interaction effect of gender diversity and CSR was negative during the GFC and post-GFC periods. These findings support the view that when performing their roles, women on corporate boards take actions that reduce risk-taking in firms.