Board Demographic, Cognitive Diversity and Firm Performance: A Quantile Regression Approach

This chapter examines the implications of board demographic diversity (e.g., gender, age) and cognitive diversity (e.g., education and financial background) on performance of tourism firms using a novel quantile regression method. Using a sample of the tourism companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges between 2010 and 2019, we find that gender diversity is associated with tourism performance using the quantile regression method. Our results suggest that board representation of women has a greater positive impact on tourism performance in good-performing firms (average or above average) compared to poor-performing firms. Further, age and educational diversity have a positive association with firm performance and the impacts are greater on good-performing firms compared to poor-performing firms. Finally, financial background diversity is negatively and significantly associated with firm performance, but the relationship is nonlinear. Overall, our evidence indicates that the impact of board demographic and cognitive diversity is not constant along the quantiles of firm performance distribution