This paper aims to examine the moderating effect of the board gender diversity in explaining the relationship between the corporate governance mechanisms, innovation, and the extent of strategic management accounting disclosures in the Malaysian public listed companies’ annual reports from the perspective of research-based view theory. The content analysis technique was employed to collect data (dependent, independent, moderating, and control variables) from 180 public listed companies for the year 2021. The regression analysis implied that the board gender diversity’s role as the moderating variable was significant in influencing the relationship between the board size and the extent of strategic management accounting disclosures. The extent of strategic management accounting disclosure on the Malaysian public listed companies’ annual reports was revealed as a ‘marginally satisfactory’ level at 46%. The hierarchical regression analysis revealed that board size, board independence, foreign ownership, and innovation significantly influenced the extent of strategic management accounting disclosure in Malaysia. The study found that board gender diversity moderates the relationship between board size and SMAD in 2021. The resource-based view theory has been successfully used in this study in conceptualizing the board size, board independence, foreign ownership, and innovation as companies’ unique resources that are valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable. This study contributes to the improvement in strategic management accounting disclosure amongst the publicly listed companies in Malaysia for business sustainability. In response to MCCG 2021 calls for informative and valuable disclosures, disclosing strategic management accounting information helps to instil trust and confidence in the various stakeholders that companies can sustain its business despite the impact of any future crises.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, Innovation, Strategic Management Accounting, Disclosure, Board Gender Diversity