Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firms Effectiveness: A Comparative Analysis between the Nigerian and Canadian Corporate Governance Framework

This study examined the corporate governance legislative framework on gender diversity in Nigeria and Canada’s corporate boards. Despite gender disparity recognized internationally and several attempts have been made to close the gap, gender diversity in the corporate world in Nigeria still seem to experience the disparity. Thus, this study investigated why Nigerian corporate boardrooms are not gender heterogeneous, provided a comparative analysis with Canada’s corporate governance framework and provided recommendations from the comparative analysis. It further explored how Nigeria can achieve gender diversity in the boardroom. This study adopted the resource dependency and agency theory theoretical framework and used the doctrinal research design. This includes existing corporate governance legal framework, scholarly literature, parliamentary debates, data, relevant textbooks, journal articles and e-resources. This study also adopted the comparative research approach as the most suitable to carry out this study. This paper therefore concludes that a gender diverse board operates to reduce agency costs, facilitates access to untapped resources, networks and serve as an external linkage to the firms, and improves performance. This means that sufficient reform needs to be done in Nigeria to provide a positive change in the legal framework that promotes female participation in the corporate sector. Finally, the study recommended that the Federal Government of Nigeria provide a primary legislative mandatory quota for a phased period, as a legal measure to combat the issue of boardroom gender diversity in Nigeria