Gender of firm leadership and environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting: evidence from banks listed on Ghana Stock Exchange

Purpose This study aims to examine how woman corporate leadership indicators and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure in listed banks on Ghana Stock Exchange are related. Design/methodology/approach Data was obtained from the audited annual reports of the banks for the period 2006–2020. Empirical result estimation was achieved using Panel Corrected Standard Errors. Findings The result revealed that female chief executive officer (CEO), female board chairperson and board gender diversity are associated with higher disclosure of ESG issues in listed banks in Ghana in overall terms. However, in terms of individual disclosures, female board chairperson positively impacts social disclosure, whereas both female CEO and female board chairperson affect governance disclosure positively. Research limitations/implications In this era of business where there is much emphasis on green business and investment by various stakeholders for purposes of ensuring business legitimacy, the result implies that banks must consider females to occupy the positions of CEO and board chairperson since that can help to improve ESG performance of banks. Practical implications In this era of business where there is much emphasis on green business, socially responsible investment and impact investment by various stakeholders, the result implies that banks must consider improving the representation of women in leadership since that can help to improve ESG performance of banks and hence ability to attract more investors. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to provide empirical evidence from a developing country perspective in Sub-Saharan Africa that gender of bank leadership has implications for ESG disclosure.