**6. Future research**

There is clearly a pressing need for research that could help to explain the inconsistent findings observed across previous studies of the relationship between female directors and CSR, especially under various economic conditions and multi-country studies to supplement the existing literatures.

People seek to find any positive narrative to latch onto during times of crisis in order to offer some feeling of normalcy to their odd reality. As COVID-19 has grown internationally, we have been able to compare how various leaders have handled the problem—and their actions appear to be a solid link in how things have turned out for those nations run by women at the moment. Various media, such as the New York Times, Forbes, Vox, the Harvard Business Review, Stanford Medicine, and NBC News, published articles supporting this narrative, suggesting that countries led by women have fared better than those led by men in pandemic management. For instance, San Francisco's mayor London Breed, the first black women to ever hold that office, took action days before governor of California and the mayor of Los Angles (both men). Similarly, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for prompt in implementing restrictive measures early on, resulting in limited contagion and a much shorter lockdown than neighboring countries. A recent release article also suggest female-led governments were more effective and rapid at flattening the epidemic's curve, with peaks in daily deaths roughly six times lower than in countries ruled by men. However, one may argue this narrative is based on sample section bias. Therefore, this could be a good opportunity for researchers to investigate the impact of COVID on the relationship between gender equality and sustainability, particularly CSR. For instance, how do gender equality friendly policy affect firm's CSR during COVID? In addition, the researcher may explore the association between female directors' qualities, such as education, social network, and political connections, and CSR before and after the pandemic.

Gender, on the other hand, is much more than biological differences between men and women. It refers to men's and women's socially created features, such as standards, attitudes, and roles that society believes appropriate for men and women. It varies from society to society and may be change overtime. Thus, it would be interesting to invest more on how gender rather than sex (i.e. male or female) impact the CSR decision.

Despite the fact that the majority of prior literatures employed quantitative methods, more rigorous qualitative investigations might be an alternate technique to acquire a deeper understanding of the relationship. Furthermore, the qualitative method may validate the female-CSR literature's fundamental assumption that female directors have greater moral and communal attitudes than male directors.

Lastly, a previous research has theorized about the impact of female director on CSR, mostly based on a literature on gender variations in moral and community attitudes. Yet, it is also possible that other variation such as reputation and network could play a moderate role in the effects of female directors on CSR.
