Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Business Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04522-4 ORIGINAL PAPER Board Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility: Empirical Evidence from France Rania Beji 1,2  · Ouidad Yousf 1  · Nadia Loukil 2  · Abdelwahed Omri 2 Received: 13 December 2018 / Accepted: 25 April 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract This study analyzes how the board’s characteristics could be associated with globally corporate social responsibility CSR and specifc areas of CSR. It is drawn on all listed frms, in 2016, on the SBF120 between 2003 and 2016. Our results pro- vide strong evidence that diversity in boards and diversity of boards globally are positively associated with corporate social performance. However, they infuence diferently specifc dimensions of CSR performance. First, we show that large boards are positively associated with all areas of CSR performance, while specifc and overall CSR scores are negatively associ- ated with CEO-chair structures. Second, board gender diversity is positively associated with human rights and corporate governance dimensions. Third, age diversity is positively associated with corporate governance, human resources, human rights, and environmental activities. Also, our results provide evidence that outside directors care about CSR performance. Specifcally, the presence of foreign directors is positively associated with environmental performance and community involvement, whereas CSR-Governance dimension is positively associated with the presence of independent directors. Regarding the director’s educational level, post-graduated directors are positively and signifcantly associated with overall CSR score and all CSR sub-scores, except the corporate governance one. When directors have multiple directorships, they are more concerned about human resources, environmental performance, and business ethics. Finally, our fndings are robust only in non-family frms. In fact, family boards are less diverse than non-family ones; specifcally, they have a lower number of independent, foreign, and high-educated directors. Keywords Corporate social responsibility · Corporate governance · CSR scores · Diversity · Demographic attributes JEL Codes M14 · G30 · G39 · J1 Introduction Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been considered as one of the most important challenges of corporate gov- ernance. Companies and their boards of directors have to integrate socially responsible investment into their overall approach (Jamali et al. 2008). CSR is a management concept whereby companies not only fully meet the applicable legal obligations, but also go beyond by extending their eforts to promote more socially responsible projects. Specifcally, companies become more concerned about the protection of human rights, employees’ conditions, environmental issues, and communities’ expecta- tions. They manage their business according to specifc ethi- cal standards. Enhancing governance quality is also among the challenging issues in CSR. * Rania Beji rania.beji@etu.umontpellier.fr Ouidad Yousf ouidad.yousf@umontpellier.fr Nadia Loukil nadialoukil@gmail.com Abdelwahed Omri abdelomri@gmail.com 1 Montpellier Research in Management Laboratory, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France 2 Gouvernance d’Entreprise, Finance Appliquée Et Audit Laboratory, Institut Supérieur de Gestion de Tunis, Université de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia