Drawing on the upper echelon’s theory and the resource-based theory, the purpose of the study is to examine the impact of board diversity on the Chinese A-listed firm’s performance. The data were collected from A-listed companies registered in Shanghai SSE 180 and the Shenzhen 100 from the period 2007 to 2016. Since some of the companies got listed after 2007, our data is unbalanced. Both fixed effects model and a more robust dynamic panel generalised method of moment estimation are applied to cater the endogeneity problem. After controlling for several firms and board characteristics, we found gender diversity, education diversity and foreign national diversity measured through Blau index have a positive and significant effect on the Chinese A-listed firm performance for both the accounting and market measures. The age diversity and independence diversity seem not to be an essential determinant of firm performance in Chinese A-listed firms. The results supported the efficient monitoring hypothesis and managerial networking theory, which suggests that the director’s diversity reduces the managerial entrenchment on the one hand, while, through networking, increases the resources of the firms on the other side.
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