**2. Does board diversity favor CSR?**

Under the upper echelon's theory [30], in diverse boards directors have more and different characteristics. They have, therefore, more knowledge, skills, values, and professional experiences that generate more ideas and interpretations of the situations they face. Diversity could lead to superior monitoring, and thus, more strategic involvement in CSR [3, 31, 32].

From an agency perspective [31], board members are supposed to monitor top managers to ensure that they serve shareholders' interests. The board's effectiveness is closely related to its composition [33, 34]. For instance, increasing corporate transparency improves the decision-making process, which drives more socially responsible management.

Resource dependence theory [35] also supports diversity in boards. Appointing more diverse profiles to boardrooms allows the firms to get access to more diverse resources, in terms of experiences, skills and networks [36–38]. All these resources are valuable when the firm has to meet shareholders expectations, and therefore for the development of a CSR strategy [5, 8, 39, 40].
