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This study aims to explore the impact of board gender diversity on firms’ forward-looking risk, as perceived by both the firm’s management and its investors. The authors seek to understand whether the presence of female directors and the consequent enhancement of board dynamics can influence a firm’s risk profile.

The authors use firms’ cash holdings and option implied volatility as proxies for future risk. The approach involves a rigorous analysis that accounts for potential concerns related to selection bias, endogeneity, heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. The authors further substantiate the findings through robustness checks, including a dynamic panel system general method of moment test and a Heckman correction model.

The results reveal an inverse relationship between board gender diversity and firms’ expected risk. The findings suggest that the primary driver of this risk reduction is the improvement in the group dynamics of the board that comes with increased gender diversity. This implies that gender diverse boards can significantly influence a firm’s risk management and financial performance.

The results indicate that gender diverse firms have economically and statistically significantly less expected risk and have better financial performance than firms with less board gender diversity. This has important implications for the organization of corporate boards.

If the addition of female directors alters the risk aversion of the board, then management may be compelled to alter their investment and production decisions that, ultimately, affects firms’ profitability. In addition, the authors investigate whether changes to firm risk is due to gender differences in risk preferences or to an improvement in the group dynamics of the board.

The empirical results suggest that the effect of board gender diversity on firms’ expected risk and financial performance may be due to an improvement in the collective intelligence of the board, as a result of more gender diversity, and not due to gender differences in risk preferences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to study the effect of board gender diversity on firms’ future risk.

The purpose of this paper is to establish whether different gender groups develop in similar or dissimilar ways to conventional group formation patterns. Focussing primarily on Tuckman's model of group development, male, female and mixed gender learning networks (groups) of entrepreneurs were observed over a six month period, with the observations recorded and analysed, to establish whether different gender networks of business people adhere to Tuckman's model of group development in terms of early development and cohesion through the forming, storming and norming stages.

A total of 100 entrepreneurs were recruited in Autumn 2009/Spring 2010 and allocated to three different gender networks, male, female and mixed, in Ireland and Wales (six networks in total), as part of the Sustainable Learning Networks Ireland Wales (SLNIW, for detailed information about SLNIW see www.slniw.com) INTERREG 4A funded project. The groups began networking in January 2010, observed by impartial observers who noted group behaviour and dynamics and recorded observations quantitatively (based on adapted Bales criteria) and qualitatively. It is the results of these observations that form the basis of this paper.

This paper analyses the results of the group dynamic witnessed over subsequent network meetings for different gender mixes in Ireland. Whilst the observations are still ongoing, early results indicate that early engagement with group members, team bonding and group dynamics are formed sooner in the single gender groups. The paper explores why this could be the case and considers factors that could then address problems with early group development in mixed gender networks, so that the ultimate “performing” stage of group development and optimal business performance is achieved as early as possible.

This paper will be of considerable value to academics, theorists and practitioners. It will specifically add to the body of knowledge on single gender networks to see if they provide a more effective learning environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the proportional representation of men and women in a group, along with the gender‐orientation of the group's task, can impact member displays of helping behavior.

The paper draws on the gender role socialization approach, the structural approach to gender differences, as well as the social psychology‐based perspective embedded in status characteristics or expectation states theory. Elements taken from each of these models permits assessment of the impact of gender, group gender composition and the gender orientation of the task on helping behavior in a group context.

There is ample evidence to confirm the critical importance of member citizenship behavior in contributing to overall team performance.

Given the presence of increasingly demographically diverse teams, it is vital to understand those factors that may enhance or inhibit helping behavior in the group context. This theory paper presents a model which examines how the gender composition of a team, as well as the gendered nature of the team's work, can influence citizenship behavior among team members who are in the numerical minority.

This paper offers a unique and novel approach to understanding the dynamics behind helping behavior in mixed gender teams.

To implement and assess an intervention designed to promote gender equity and organizational change within STEM departments in two Colleges at a single Research High university. Department climate impacts the retention and success of women faculty.

A survey was administered both before and after the department intervention in order to capture departmental change on variables that measure a positive climate for female faculty.

Across all of the science and engineering departments, levels of Collective Efficacy toward Gender Equity significantly increased while levels of Conflict significantly decreased after the department facilitation. In the science departments, the level of Vicarious Experience of Gender Equity among faculty significantly increased while in the engineering departments levels of faculty Dependence significantly decreased. There was a statistically significant decrease in Optimism about Gender Equity among the science faculty.

Organizational change within universities has been documented as slow and labor intensive. Departmental climate, particularly interactions with colleagues, remains an area wherein women continue to feel excluded. The departmental intervention resulted in measurable improvements in key aspects of climate critical to women’s success (e.g., reductions in conflict and dependence; increases in collective efficacy) as well as more realistic view of the effort needed to attain gender equity (decrease in Optimism).

Reflections on gender and OD over a 50-year career as a scholar, an OD practitioner, and a woman managing a complex life and career.

My journey in OD has spanned 50 years which is also about as long organization development has been around. In this essay, I will reflect on my experiences with special attention to issues of gender. I will also mention some issues of concern that confront us as OD scholars and practitioners, especially the balance between thinking and doing. As I describe my experiences, I hope they will lead to an appreciation of all that has happened in just 50 years! My experience is not everyone’s experience. I make no claim to that. I hope that some of the issues I raise resonate with you, or fill in some blanks, or lend a different perspective.

Studies the behaviour of men and women in working groups – men through the analogy of the pecking order, i.e. hierarchical, and women through that of the crab basket, i.e. equality. Discusses the respective advantages and disadvantages of the two groups, which appear to be complementary. Concludes, however, that, despite the apparent complementariness, both sides need to show mutual understanding of their respective codes before they can achieve constructive co‐operation in management.

To present an account of changes in the behaviour of male bank managers who were engaged in action learning groups whose focus was on improving service quality and leadership development.

Qualitative study of the development of group process, and the changes in behaviours of the managers whose values and norms were dominated by discourses of traditional hegemonic masculinity. It is also an autobiographical account of the authors' experience of facilitating action learning groups.

Analysis of the groups' processes revealed a connection between the development of the groups in relation to authority and the changes in the managers' behaviour over a period of 12 months during which they began to behave in ways typically characterised as feminine.

Has implications for management development especially the development of male managers and their capacity to work in more feminine ways. Significant factors in developing men's management and leadership capabilities are peer learning, and engagement with authority in ways that are not dissimilar to the experiences of the adolescent and young adult in relation to peers and parents. There are also implications for facilitators and trainers engaged in management development processes.

Offers a theoretical contribution to the concept of the “Authority Cycle”, and theories on masculinity. It is also useful for management development practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the increasingly important area of diversity management in multicultural settings. This paper examines several private organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as illustrative examples of the challenges facing global organizations seeking to utilise a hugely diverse labour force. The objective of the investigation is to shed more light on the intervening variables that connect diversity dimensions to personal attitudes on diversity.

A total of 406 employees from ten organizations operating in the UAE were selected based on their length of service and contract type. These participants completed questionnaires as a means of determining their attitudes towards diversity in the workplace. The data were subjected to principal component analysis from which a regression model was derived that associates intervening variables identified from the study with personal attitudes to diversity.

Three intervening variables (components) are found: commitment to the organization, frustration in the work environment and perceptions of respect and fairness. These are found to be correlated to personal attitudes to diversity in the workplace. Furthermore, location is found to be a differentiating factor in the context of commitment to the organization, with Dubai employees being more committed than those in Abu Dhabi – hence, both emirates expressed different views on diversity in the workplace.

Ensuring reliability of responses on such a sensitive topic, gaining access to a representative set of participant organizations and insufficient literature on related issues all impinged on the research investigation. The research has relevance to managers tasked with overseeing multicultural teams and human resource (HR) issues related to personal well‐being in the workplace.

The identification of intervening variables is an under‐researched area that now can take direction from the results of this investigation. Practitioners will have a better understanding of how to achieve more positive attitudes to diversity and thus, improve group dynamics in the workplace by targeting these intervening variables in HR policies.

This chapter examines the research practices, procedures and problems involved in a study investigating the digital lifeworlds of rural and urban youth aged 13–18 years in Nigeria. First, the chapter maps the key aspects of the ethical guidelines that were followed before and during the course of the study. The key aspects of the guidelines covered issues linked to information disclosure, assent/consent, confidentiality, potential harms to participants, and institutions, and financial compensation and other inducements. In addition, the chapter unpacks some of the ethical complexities and dilemmas that emerged during the research. Drawing on perspectives from the new sociology of childhood and youth-centred research approaches, the chapter examines both the opportunities and challenges involved in doing research with young people on digital technology within the African context. In line with a youth-centred approach, the study privileges young people’s views and voices to facilitate their full autonomy and rights to participate in research. The chapter draws attention to the important contextual influences and dynamics that can affect all aspects of the research process and shape the emergent ethical considerations. These include ethical conundrums such as adult–child power relationship, gendered relations and group dynamics, problems of language and cognition, ‘techno-shame’, shy and assertive participants, the drawbacks of conducting fieldwork in school settings and absent participants.

This paper aims to trace how emotion shapes the sense that is made of politics and how politicization can remake and re-mark emotion, giving it new meaning in context. This paper brings together theories of politicization and emotional configurations in learning to interrogate the role emotion plays in the learning of social justice activists.

Drawing on sociocultural learning perspectives, the paper traces politicization processes across the youth climate movement (using video-based interaction analysis) and the animal rights movement (using ethnographic interviews and participant observation).

Emotional configurations significantly impacted activists’ politicization in terms of what was learned conceptually, the kinds of practices – including emotional practices – that were taken up collectively, the epistemologies that framed social justice work, and the identities that were made salient in collective action. In turn, politicization reshaped how social justice activists made sense of emotion in the course of activist practice.

This study is valuable for theorizing social justice learning, so social movement facilitators and educators might design spaces where learning about gender, racialization, colonialism and/or human/more-than-human relations can thrive. By attending to emotional configurations, this study can help facilitate a design that supports and sustains learning for justice.

Emotion remains under-theorized and under-analyzed in the learning sciences, despite indications that emotion enables and constrains particular learning opportunities. This paper proposes new ways of understanding emotion and politicization as co-constitutive processes for learning scientists interested in politics and social justice.