Women on corporate boards and allocation of capital raised through IPOs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the differences in men and women, such as risk aversion in decision making, can influence the amount of capital that the board of directors can allocate for investment opportunities. Design/methodology/approach This study sampled 212 IPOs over the period of 2005-2015 and employed the OLS and the quantile regression techniques to examine the impact of female directors on capital allocation. Findings The results show that women on corporate boards have a positive influence on the amount of capital an IPO company can allocate for investment opportunities. These findings suggest that the investment strategies of women in an emerging financial market, like Malaysia, may differ from women in other financial markets.