A woman’s touch

Women on Corporate Boards

“…Scholarly attention paid to the presence or absence of women board directors has increased over the last decade: Terjesen, Sealy, and Singh (2009) and Davidson and Burke (2011) offer excellent reviews of the peer-reviewed literature published to date. The central themes of the debate have centered on why women are, in general, absent from the corporate boardroom (Hillman et al, 2007; Singh & Vinnicombe, 2004; Thomson et al, 2005), what can be done to remedy the situation (Singh, Vinnicombe, & Terjesen, 2007), and what the nature of these remedies should be (Bilimoria & Piderit, 2007; Thomson et al, 2005). Particularly controversial has been the decision by certain governments to legislate in favor of increased board participation (Grosvold et al, 2007).…”

“…Some studies have shown that women corporate board directors contribute to better governance and firm performance (Adler, 2001; Coffey & Wang, 1998; Webb, 2004; Williams, 2003). Women require more robust discussions and thorough analysis before agreeing to corporate proposals (Singh & Vinnicombe, 2004; van der Walt & Ingley, 2003), leading Thomson et al (2005) to argue that gender-diverse boards are less inclined to rubber stamp the CEO’s decisions, and that the presence of women can “. .…”

“…Women must have held and succeeded at senior managerial, technical, financial, or judicial roles to qualify for corporate board positions. Where countries adopt legislative programs designed to ease women’s way back into the labor force following childbirth, the pool of female managerial talent qualified for corporate board directorships increases (Thomson et al, 2005). This increase in the female talent pool follows as women who benefit from the welfare provisions discussed above have been found to be less likely to leave full-time employment (Jaumotte, 2003; Klerman & Leibowitz, 1993; Ruhm, 1998) and more likely to gain the necessary skills and experience for higher managerial roles (Standing, 1999), and are therefore better able to build the requisite contact network necessary to acquire corporate board directorships.…”

“…The relative absence of women as corporate board directors has been the subject of extensive research designed to establish the business case for women corporate board directors (Adams & Ferreira, 2009; Bear, Rahman, & Post, 2010; Nielsen & Hagen, 2009; Nielsen & Huse, 2010), and to begin to unravel the circumstances and characteristics that facilitate or impede qualified women’s access to corporate board directorships (Burke, 2003; Burke & Mattis, 2000; Grosvold & Brammer, 2011; Huse, Nielsen, & Hagen, 2009; Sheridan, 2001; Sheridan & Milgate, 2005; Singh & Vinnicombe, 2004; Terjesen & Singh, 2008). The business case for increased female corporate board participation rests on the premise that women directors have been shown to enhance the firm’s financial performance (Carter, Simkins, & Simpson, 2003; Catalyst, 2007; Erhardt, Werbel, & Shrader, 2003; Hillman, Harris, Cannella, & Bellinger, 1998; Huse, Nielsen, & Hagen, 2009) and corporate governance practices (Adams & Ferreira, 2009; Thomson, Graham, & Lloyd, 2005). The relative roles of the characteristics and circumstances that facilitate women’s rise to the top have been addressed with reference to individual (Sheridan & Milgate, 2005; Singh & Vinnicombe, 2004), board (Westphal & Milton, 2000; Westphal & Stern, 2007; Westphal & Zajac, 1995), firm (Carter et al, 2003; Hillman et al, 2007), and industry (Brammer, Millington, & Pavelin, 2007; Grosvold, Brammer, & Rayton, 2007) characteristics.…”

“…Legislation has, however, proved controversial with businesses typically preferring voluntary initiatives intended to increase the share of board seats held by women. The European Union (EU) recently dropped a proposal for EU wide legislation designed to make the boardrooms of the EU more gender diverse, and Sweden shelved earlier proposals for legislation similar to that of Norway (Thomson et al, 2005). These rejections of legislative interventions to make boardrooms more diverse suggest that a clearer understanding of the institutions analyzed in this article can not only contribute to the debate on what types of levers are available at the national level to increase female board participation but also help delineate how board demography is affected by different institutions.…”