The aim of this thesis is to scrutinise the supposed benefits of diversity for financial risk management on the dimensions of gender and age. While other research has mainly examined boardroom diversity, the contribution of this thesis is to investigate these issues for staff more generally. Such a study is highly relevant in an environment where staff diversity is seen by some as a solution to banker misconduct. We analyse 36,223 staff survey responses drawn from ten banks headquartered in Australia, Canada and the UK. Survey responses suggest that females and older workers display more desirable (and less undesirable) risk management behaviour, but the effect size is modest and, in the case of females, largely explained by the greater risk aversion of females on average. We find no evidence that business units with a higher proportion of females/older staff or units that are led by females have more favourable risk culture, nor do we find moderation effects of risk culture in multilevel analyses. These somewhat surprising findings may be explained by the fact that culture is primarily driven by leaders and gender differences in risk aversion tend to diminish with seniority.     «

The aim of this thesis is to scrutinise the supposed benefits of diversity for financial risk management on the dimensions of gender and age. While other research has mainly examined boardroom diversity, the contribution of this thesis is to investigate these issues for staff more generally. Such a study is highly relevant in an environment where staff diversity is seen by some as a solution to banker misconduct. We analyse 36,223 staff survey responses drawn from ten banks headquartered in Aust...     »