This study examines the relationship between gender diversity (women on the board and women on the audit committee) and a firm’s financial stability. The ordinary least square analysis was used to determine the relationship. To measure the financial stability of Malaysian suspect firms, i.e., firms with the lowest positive earnings, the Altman (1993) Z-Score measurement was utilized. The results indicate that women on the board are significantly and negatively associated with the firm’s financial stability. That is, they are related to low financial stability, which contradicts the agency and resource dependence theories. Regarding women directors on the audit committee, there is no significant relationship with financial stability, meaning that they cannot protect the company against financial distress. These results are robust and do not change when using different measurements of gender diversity, one-year lag of independent variables, and other methods of analysis, namely random effect panel data. This study is the first to alert policymakers, stakeholders, researchers, and society in general to the need to re-evaluate and strengthen the role of women directors in improving firms’ financial stability, particularly in emerging economies like Malaysia.

This paper investigates the effect of the involvement of the board chairman in the audit committee (AC) on earnings management (EM). It examines Bursa Malaysia-listed companies with the lowest positive earnings for the years 2013 to 2015. The Modified Jones Model by Kasznik (1999) was used to determine discretionary accruals. An AC that includes its board chairman as an ordinary member is associated with greater discretionary accruals. However, a board chairman who is also the chairman of the AC does not seem to influence discretionary accruals. This paper supports the agency theory and policy-makers’ efforts to prevent board chairmen from sitting on ACs. It is the first study that uses the agency theory to describe the association between the board chairman’s involvement in the both AC and EM. This study alerts policy-makers, stakeholders and researchers to the influence of a board chairman serving on the AC in curbing EM. Furthermore, it provides empirical evidence that the majority of Malaysian companies whose board chairmen are involved in the AC appoint the chairman as an ordinary member of the AC. This indicates that executive directors may affect such actions. Hence, more policies are needed to improve AC independence.