The aim of this research was to assess the effect of top management team gender diversity on firms’ effective commitment to climate change management from two new perspectives: a more detailed analysis of gender diversity in corporate management and an international analysis of the phenomenon. Broadening climate change management assessment through selected CDP qualitative metrics for governance, risk management and strategy provides a more in-depth view of climate change managerial practices. Even though a growing body of academic literature highlights the potential positive impact of gender diversity, this empirical research based on a sample of 836 firms from 16 developed countries provides mainly inconclusive results. These results may be explained first by a still insufficient and below critical mass, percentage of women within top management teams; and second, by a selection bias, as only the best performers disclose their climate change management data. This also calls for companies to improve their gender diversity among the top management team, and for regulators to further extend compulsory climate change management reporting.

In this paper, we analyze an under-examined strategic structure: the corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee within the board of directors. We conduct univariate analysis and binary logistic regressions on the determinants of the presence of a CSR committee within the board of 427 companies in non-financial industries included in the STOXX Europe 600 Index for the years 2006–2011. Besides firm size and industry type, our findings suggest that a CSR committee is more likely to be present in companies that operate in a common law jurisdiction and when the CEO is also chair of the board. Combining those results with insights from the variety of capitalism, strategic choice, and resource-based perspectives, our paper contributes to the non-stabilized literature on the link between CSR and governance by nuancing prior hypotheses and findings about the determinants of the presence of a CSR committee within a board of directors.