Women in top echelon positions and their effects on sustainability: a review, synthesis and future research agenda

This article aims to review and systematize prior works that investigate how the presence of women in top echelon positions of frms afects sustainability and to create an agenda to guide future research in this promising area. In contrast to previous reviews, ours examines how women in top echelon positions afect sustainability by distinguishing both the position women held in the frm (i.e. Board of Directors—BoD, top management team, CEO and relevant committees) and the specifc elements of sustainability (i.e. activity, performance, and disclosure). Our structured systematic review resulted in 187 publications retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus and revealed that the presence of women in top echelon positions is associated with greater engagement in social and environmental projects. Their presence also positively infuences the environmental and social performance and increases the level, quality, and transparency of sustainability disclosure. Furthermore, the presence of women in top echelon positions and the implementation of sustainable activities improve both the frm fnancial performance and value. However, conficting results have also emerged. On the basis of these fndings, research gaps and future research agenda are identifed and presented.