Gender Gap in Artificial Intelligence and its impact on financial performance: Evidence from Italian digitalised companies.

A significant research effort has been made in the issue of gender equity representation in the economy, raising awareness on the dangers posed by the low representation of women in male-dominated sectors and economic decisions making positions. Although many achievements have been reached, in pursuing gender equality, progress might be threatened by the emergence of new gender gaps in advanced technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-related jobs. As suggested by the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2018) and the European Commission (2019), the labour market is facing an unparalleled shortage of women working in the high-tech sector which reflects the under-representation of women in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education field. Considering the increasing demand for advanced technology skills across all industries, even those traditionally not characterized by digitalisation, the lack of tech professional expertise among women could lead to a double-gender gap for which female workers are less employed both in AI businesses and new digitalised industries, risking the marginalisation from the labour market, over next years. This paper addresses the reasons behind the considerable gender gap registered in the AI sector, as highlighted by the WEF, and the domino effect it may have on digitalised industries. Given that gender quotas mitigate the negative impacts of discrimination barriers against women and enrich the pool of female workers in business, this paper analyses board gender diversity in Italian listed companies operating in the tech sector, during the period 2012-2018. Since higher performance could represent a crucial topic in the adoption of gender quotas, this work aims to further explore the correlation between board gender diversity and performance. Based on prior literature, the role played by the share of female directors exceeding the critical mass has been investigated. Empirical evidence shows that female representation exerts a slight and positive influence on both market performance and shareholders’ equity.