The effect of Gender Diversity on the performance of Spanish agri-food cooperatives

Gender diversity in boards of directors has the potential to add value to the organizations that promote it. Under the premise of theories such as: agency, resource dependence or stakeholders, there have been several studies that have analysed the relationship between the number of women in the boards and the economic and financial results of the companies. However, the review of these papers allows us to obtain two clear conclusions. First, that the results are not conclusive, since positive, negative and non-significant relationships have been found between both variables. And the second, that most of these studies have been carried out on large companies listed on the Stock Exchange Market, mainly Public Limited Companies and Limited Liability Companies. In this way, this paper tries to contribute to the literature on this topic, analysing the gender diversity in the board of the Spanish agri-food cooperative societies and their influence on the profitability of the company. Specifically, 1171 cooperatives of the agri-food sector in Spain have been analysed, using statistical regression techniques. The results show that there are significant differences depending on the type of board, classifying them according to the degree of parity of each one, and the ROE and ROA profitability measures. In addition, in the case of the ROA, a positive and significant relationship is also observed between the percentage of women on the board and this variable of profitability.