Do Female Directors Add Value?

This study investigates whether female directors have a significant effect on financial performance of publicly listed companies in the Vietnamese market. Using a dynamic random-effects model to explore a panel dataset comprising 480 firm-year observations, we report that the companies with female directors in their boardrooms perform better than those without. Our finding thus supports the proposition that boardroom gender diversity appears to be an important internal corporate governance strategy which helps to improve firm performance. As Vietnam and many other East Asian countries are now implementing compulsory policies or calling for voluntary attempts to increase board gender diversity, our paper is especially timely and provides useful insight for policy formulation.