Análise multinível da divulgação de ações de responsabilidade social empresarial relativas à equidade de gênero

Abstract

Gender equity is a frequent theme in society's discussions and is relevant, being present in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and in periodic surveys to dimension gender gaps. In addition, the Global Reporting Initiative guides the disclosure of gender, addressing this issue as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. However, few studies address this issue and investigate it by observing variables related to the country's regulation and political aspects, the management model and the presence of women on the boards of directors. We did not find any studies that carried out a multilevel analysis for CSR practices related to gender equity. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze the influence of the characteristics of the country (macro level), the sector (medium level) and the company (micro level) in the disclosure of CSR actions related to gender equity in a global sample of companies . We collected information on CSR actions related to gender equity from 3,726 companies in the years 2008 to 2017 in the Thomson Reuters database. The statistical treatment included panel data regression for each level and multilevel analysis based on the Linear Hierarchical Model. The results reveal that the disclosure about CSR actions related to gender equity has decreased. The variables that most influenced this disclosure were the characteristics of the company, explaining approximately 40% of the variations in the phenomenon. The country's characteristics contributed with 14% and the sector, with 2%. However, the regional peculiarities must be considered. In North American companies, for example, multilevel analysis has not substantially increased the ability to understand the phenomenon. Among the country level variables, enforcement, union pressure, popular participation and economic development had a positive impact on the disclosure of gender equity. Financing through the capital market had a negative impact and there was no statistical significance of the government's effectiveness, the quality of the educational system and the power distance. Despite the low influence of the sector, we found that the Energy and Telecommunications Services business sectors positively influence gender equity disclosure. Among the firm's characteristics, union representation, commitment to supranational organizations, the size and adoption of GRI guidelines had a positive impact on the phenomenon. There was a negative influence of the female presence on the Board of Directors and the Return on Assets. However, the Net Margin was not a good predictor of the phenomenon. However, we emphasize that local peculiarities must be considered, because, in North America, for example, the female presence on the Board of Directors has a positive impact on this disclosure. Among the contributions of this research, we can mention the innovation in studying the disclosure of CSR actions related to gender and the use of multilevel analysis to investigate the phenomenon. The main result of this research was to note that it is preferable to consider the characteristics of companies (micro level) when it is intended to explain the disclosure of gender equity.