The Association between Board Diversity, Earnings Management and Firm Performance in Kuwait: A Research Agenda

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the consequences of board diversity. The objectives are to measure the impact of gender, age, national diversity on earnings management (EM). This research study raises the following questions: Does board diversity affect earnings management and firm performance? Has the 2013 Kuwait Corporate Governance Code impacted on board diversity on earnings management, beside firm performance? The research uses data from 103 non-financial Kuwaiti listed companies in the period from 2010 to 2017. The data is collected from the companies’ data from secondary sources such as their annual reports. The data analysis methods are correlation, multi-regression and robust regression. Earnings management was measured using the model modified by Jones (1995) and Kothari et al. (2005). Firm performance measured by ROA, ROE, Tobin’s Q and total shareholder return. The independent variables are gender diversity, age diversity, nationality diversity, board size, board independent and role duality. Control variables are firm size, industry type, total debt, total revenue, oil price, percentage change oil price, gold price, the percentage change of gold price and, ROA.

Keywords: Earnings Management, Firm Performance, Board Diversity, Kuwait