Female Directors' Expertise in the Audit Committee and Corporate Environmental Disclosure. Evidence from Listed Non-Financial Firms in Kenya
| dc.contributor.author | Magoma, Anthony | |
| dc.contributor.author | Mkunde, Beatrice | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-10-30T12:06:42Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-10-30T12:06:42Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-11-30 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the influence of female directors' expertise in the audit committee and corporate environmental disclosure (CED) of listed non-financial firms in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). Despite growing interest in gender diversity in corporate governance, existing empirical research in Kenya has largely overlooked the specific impact of female audit committee members’ professional expertise, particularly in accounting and finance, on CED. Addressing this gap, the study focuses on two key variables: female audit committee members with accounting/finance backgrounds and those without. Guided by agency theory, resource dependency theory, and stakeholder theory, the study utilized a content analysis approach to manually review and code annual reports of 20 listed non-financial firms from 2016 to 2023, resulting in a balanced panel of 160 firm-year observations. Fixed effect panel regression was used to test the hypotheses, while the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) was used to test for robustness. The results revealed that female audit committee members with accounting and finance expertise significantly influenced CED. In contrast, female non-accounting and finance experts in the audit committee exerted a negative and significant influence on CED. The study concludes that accounting and finance expertise among female directors in the audit committee is a key determinant of CED among listed non-financial firms in Kenya. The study recommends that listed non-financial firms should promote gender diversity by appointing females with relevant expertise to audit committees. It also urges policymakers to issue guidelines that emphasize both gender representation and professional competence to enhance CED in emerging economies like Kenya. | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2591-6815 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://repository.tia.ac.tz/handle/123456789/243 | |
| dc.publisher | African Journal of Accounting and Social Science Studies (AJASSS) | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Vol. 2; Issue 2 | |
| dc.subject | Gender diversity | |
| dc.subject | accounting and financial experts | |
| dc.subject | non-accounting and financial experts | |
| dc.subject | audit committee | |
| dc.subject | Corporate environmental disclosure | |
| dc.title | Female Directors' Expertise in the Audit Committee and Corporate Environmental Disclosure. Evidence from Listed Non-Financial Firms in Kenya | |
| dc.type | Presentation |