THE IMPACT OF BOARD DIVERSITY ON FIRM VALUE: THE CASE OF TURKEY

There is a special attention to corporate governance during to past ten years in the wake of financial failures in world's leading companies. How the board of directors should be formed constitutes an important part of corporate governance practices. In this context, the current study seeks an answer to the question of whether boardroom diversity affects the firm value by considering the differences in the context of the developing country. In the study, 2010-2015 data in year-end balance sheets, annual activity reports and official reports of ordinary general meeting which belongs to 67 BIST 100 companies are employed. Percentage of female directors, percentage of independent directors and percentage of foreign directors are used for measurement of boardroom diversity while Tobin's Q is employed for measurement of firm value. Results revealed that there is positive relation between firm value and percentage of foreign directors and percentage of independent directors. Besides, there is no statistically significant relation between percentage of women directors and Tobin's Q.