Banking Risk Management: Female Perspective - Literature review Example

The paper "Banking Risk Management: Female Perspective" is a wonderful example of a literature review on finance and accounting. The roles played by leaders in executive positions are very important in the determination of the overall success of their organizations. In addition to the roles leaders play in executive positions, Zaccaro, Gulick & Khare (2008) noted that the leadership style used by leaders, as well as the overall attitude of leaders within the organization, affects the approach to work, as well as the output of work.

Even though the role played by leaders and their leadership style is admitted to impact organizational success, risk within the banking sector has been pointed to as being one important issue that affects the overall performance of banks. (Peni & Vähämaa, 2012). Relating this to the role of leaders in ensuring the success of their organizations, one can say that the effectiveness of a leader in an executive position can be measured by the leader’s attitude towards risk management.

This is because once risk is well managed within banks the overall performance of the banks as measured by variables like profitability can be improved (Sharma, Mishra & Sharma, 2010). With this idea in mind, Zaccaro, Gulick & Khare (2008) observed an evolving issue of gender diversity in executive positions, where it is commonly argued that the gender composition of corporate board members affects overall firm risk management. The ‘Lehman Sisters’ argument has been proposed by Ms.

Christine Lagarde. In 2010, Ms. Christine Lagarde of the IMF famously stated that “if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, today’s economic crisis clearly would look quite different” (Lagarde, 2010). Relating the Lehman Sisters’ argument to the Davies Report, it is seen that the Davies review annual report (2014) suggests that female directors expect to reach 25 percent by 2015, this will double the proportion of female directors on firm boards since 2011. The rising number of female directors raised a number of doubts about the impact on firm risk management.

The key question of the study is therefore to investigate through empirical findings, the effect of gender diversity in executive positions on corporate boards on firm and banking risk management from a female perspective. In doing so, four sub-questions are explored.