Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the female board participation and the readability of annual report. Design/methodology/approach: Using hand-collected data from a “network-oriented market”, as exists in Italy, which includes 435 annual reports, this study uses a regression analysis to test whether female board participation affects the annual report readability. Findings: Female board participation is found to have a positive impact on disclosure readability in firms with small boardroom connections but the opposite effect in firms with large boardroom connections. Research limitations/implications: This paper responds to recent calls in the corporate governance literature by investigating whether the female board participation affects the transparency of the disclosure practices. Practical implications: This study has policy implications, as it helps to improve evaluations of how, and under which circumstances, female board participation may lead to higher disclosure quality and thus benefit investors. Originality/value: This paper shows that female board participation has different effects on the disclosure readability at different levels of board positions in inter-firm networks.

The present research investigates the impact that certain gender diversity attributes exert on online intellectual capital (IC) disclosure in the context of Italian‐listed firms where regulations promoted gender balance in the governing bodies. The websites of a sample of 123 Italian listed companies are content‐analyzed to retrieve the level of voluntary IC disclosure (ICD). Drawing on Agency and Resource Dependence theory perspectives, an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model, is estimated to test the association between online ICD and different gender diversity measures, specifically: the proportion of women on boards and the presence of female Chairpersons and female CEOs. The content analysis results show that listed companies in Italy make extensive disclosure of IC on their websites. The results based on the regression analysis confirm that women's presence on boards is conducive to higher voluntary ICD. The analysis also demonstrates that Italian‐listed firms tend to convey more voluntary information on IC resources when a woman is appointed as a CEO. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that provides a snapshot of the potential association between gender diversity—in terms of both the proportion of women on the boards and the presence of women in top executive positions—and the level of web‐based ICD.

Universities are increasingly called to demonstrate to stakeholders their active commitment to responding to social and environmental issues through comprehensive reporting practices. Such expectations were further enhanced by the recent pandemic outbreak unleashed by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has bolstered social pressures on universities to demonstrate their active engagement in supporting health systems in fighting against the virus as well as in ensuring adequate e-learning paths for students. Therefore, this study aims to investigate to what extent Italian public universities disclose sustainability information on their websites. The study is based on a well-established framework adapted from the literature. The category “Sustainability and COVID-19” has been added to also examine the extent to which universities disclose information regarding policies and strategies adopted to cope with the ongoing pandemic crisis. Results evidence that most of the sampled universities devote a specific section of their websites to disclose information on sustainability issues. Results also highlight a strong commitment to the disclosure of social issues. Particular attention is devoted to disclosing information about “Social Performance”; “Sustainability and COVID-19” and “Society Issues”. The results may be beneficial to both policymakers and university governors in gaining awareness about the potential of websites in engendering insights into the social issues that involve a university and a wider range of stakeholders.

In recent decades, there have been increasing concerns about the role of organizations in society and their impact on climate change, environmental degradation, resource depletion, health crises, and human rights’ inequalities (Yanez et al

Gender equity is a topic of significant interest for universities, who are called upon to plan strategies and measures to increase gender equality in line with international policies. With a qualitative methodology based on manual content analysis, the paper aims to understand whether and how this report could positively assess a university’s actions for reaching SDG 5. This study’s results show that the CRUI guidelines can be used by universities to disclose gender policies that may be of interest to stakeholders, and can also be synthesized in THE ranking, increasing university visibility. The present study could be helpful for universities, regulatory bodies, policy makers, and agency rankings to help them identify the most relevant gender items on which to focus their attention.