Gender diversity in executive suite, ownership structure, and integrated reporting performance: evidence from an emerging country

This study aims to examine the relationship between executive gender diversity (GENDMGT) and integrated reporting quality (IRQ) with the moderating role of ownership structure. We analyse firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) that adopted integrated reporting between 2015 and 2024, using ordinary least squares regression to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that female participation in executive roles significantly improves IRQ. However, the effects vary across ownership structures: institutional ownership weakens, whereas foreign ownership strengthens, the positive association between GENDMGT and IRQ. Moreover director ownership plays insignificant role on that tie. Additional analyses indicate that female board representation further moderates this relationship, particularly when senior management includes at least three women, consistent with critical mass theory. This study contributes to the broader corporate governance (CG) literature by offering fresh evidence from an emerging economy on how gender diversity in top management affects integrated reporting outcomes. It also provides practical insights for firms aiming to enhance IRQ in largely voluntary reporting contexts. This study advances upper echelons, agency and stakeholder theory by evidencing the role of GENDMGT in enhancing IRQ, and espousing composition of executive suit especially gender enhances transparency through disclosure and pronouncing this affinity through external monitoring of managerial activities, gaining access to required external resources, information, and cutting-edge technology by the foreign investors. The outcomes also offer practical implications for policymakers and regulators to devise CG mechanisms by focusing on increasing women at executive suite, for stakeholders in assessing a firm’s accountability to society, and for analysts in predicting firm IRQ by analysing GENDMGT.