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In this paper, women’s representation on public boards in Australia is explored from two perspectives. First, a gender profile of board membership is developed from the public reports submitted to the Australian Stock Exchange. This analysis suggests that in Australia, the majority of public boards comprise only men and where there are women on public boards, they are likely to be the lone woman amongst many men when the board meeting comes to order. Second, women’s own reports of how they accessed and have experienced membership of public boards are explored. What many women suggest is that in accessing boards, it is often the case that it is “who you know not what you know”.

The rapid expansion in part‐time employment in Australia over the past two decades has largely been driven by organisations’ desire to achieve numerical and functional flexibility (the business case for flexibility) rather than a desire to assist employees balance work and family responsibilities (the equal opportunities case for flexibility). Argues that the differences between the business and equal opportunities discourses surrounding flexibility result in significant problems for both employees and organisations – problems that limit the growth of the individual and the organisation. For part‐time employment to be an effective organisational strategy, it is critical that the human resource management (HRM) role actively negotiate between the different needs of employers and employees. This will entail making both parties’ needs explicit, acknowledging the differences between their needs and directing efforts towards constructing outcomes that are mutually satisfying.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how board recruitment processes have been impacted by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) governance changes requiring listed boards to report annually on their gender diversity policy and profile.

Employing a social constructivist approach, the research analyses interviews conducted with matched samples of board directors and stakeholders in 2010 and 2017 about board recruitment in ASX50 companies.

The introduction of ASX guidelines requiring gender reporting disrupted traditional board appointment processes. Women's gender capital gained currency, adding an additional dimension to the high levels of human and social capital seen as desirable for board appointments. The politics of women's presence is bringing about changes to the discourse and practice about who should/can be a director. The authors identify highly strategic ways in which women's gender capital has been used to agitate for more women to be appointed to boards.

While sample sizes are small, data within the themes cohered meaningfully across the time periods, making visible how women's presence in the board room has been reframed. Future research could consider what this may mean for board dynamics and how enduring are these changes.

This study highlights the forms that human and social capital take in board appointments, which can be instructive for potential directors, and how these intersect with gender capital. The insights from the study are relevant to board recruitment committees seeking to reflect their commitment to a more gender equitable environment.

There has been a recalibration of men's and women's gender capital in board appointments, and there is now a currency in femaleness disrupting the historical privilege afforded “maleness”.

Although affirmative action is often referred to as though it was an homogeneous entity, the reality is that affirmative action policies can take many different forms. To date, the variety of affirmative action policies that have been implemented in Australia has not been well‐documented. In this paper, a framework is developed to describe the variety of affirmative action policies being implemented in Australia in the 1990s. The most frequently reported policies by Australian organisations concern reviewing employment policies for discriminatory practices. The next most commonly reported policies relate to companies’ efforts to assist employees to balance the competing roles of work and family. Policies that seek to challenge traditional patterns of employment, and policies that seek to “fix” women are less commonly reported by organisations. The breaking down of affirmative action into various types of policies provides scope for more fully exploring the question of the effectiveness of affirmative action policies.

The gendered nature of organizations has now been well established by feminist researchers. In particular, the most senior levels of management have been identified as sites of hegemonic masculinity; the causes of which are complex, socially reproduced inter‐relationships that are highly resistant to change. While it has been argued that these structures will become less problematic as more women enter the paid workforce and more move into senior management, in this paper this argument is challenged. Recent research by the authors concerning women in the most senior ranks of management in the private sector in Australia suggests that, while the majority of these women identify the need for change, they have not used their role in senior management as a means of challenging gendered structures. The implications of the findings are that it is invalid to assume that change will come about through increasing numbers of women in management. Other means of challenging gendered organizational structures must be implemented, if quantifiable change is to come about.

Popular representations of the workplace have tended to construct women as unsuited to management and leadership roles. In their reflective capacity these popular fictional texts illustrate the workplace. In their capacity to construct popular perceptions of “reality”, the texts offer an important insight into women’s and men’s understandings and expectations of their workplace relationships. In this article we reflect on how popular films, plays and television shows can make visible some manifestations of the kinds of resistance women continue to experience in non‐traditional domains such as management. While these kinds of texts have not been central to the analysis of workplace relations within the management literature, we argue that as social documents they have much to contribute to an understanding of the limited advancement of women.

This paper aims to demonstrate how close analysis of cultural narratives can be employed as effective pedagogical tools in the explication and critique of specific workplace issues relevant to health management education.

Two narratives have been selected to illustrate this point: the apparently “fictional” UK-based medical television drama series Bodies (2005-2006) and the apparently “factual” report of an Australian state government public inquiry into acute health care, the Garling Report.

Through their demonstration of how analyses of selected segments of these texts can be used in health management education, the authors conclude that the comparative analyses of ostensibly “fictional” and “factual” narratives allow for analysis and critique of the inadequacies of new public management (NPM) applied to the health care industry, leading to a greater understanding of wider ideological effects on public perceptions.

The authors argue that these understandings enliven students' learning experiences, and that such comparative analyses should be applied more widely across health management education to develop students' critical skills and openness to exploring alternative models.

Comparative analysis of cultural texts is novel in health care education, and allows for the interrogation of ideology and its effects.

While women have continued to increase their representation in the paid workforce, their representation in the most senior ranks of management in Australia remains very low. In this paper, the backgrounds and experiences of women board members of publicly‐listed companies in Australia are explored to identify the factors they perceive as important to their nomination and selection to boards. It seems that these “successful” women have overcome the resistance to including women on boards by not only being well‐educated and able to demonstrate a strong track record in their field to be nominated to a board position, but also having valuable business contacts. For women seeking to access this most privileged level of management, the importance of networks should not be overlooked.

While women have continued to increase their representation in the paid workforce, their representation on corporate boards in Australia remains very low. In this paper, the views of men and women board members of publicly‐listed companies in Australia concerning the adequacy of the composition of boards and the factors contributing to women’s low representation are explored and contrasted. It seems that these “successful” men and women have significantly different views on the benefits of homogeneity or diversity of board membership. While the men believe the current composition is generally adequate, the women are concerned about the lack of diversity of board membership. These findings are considered in the context of existing work on masculinity and identity politics that suggest that those who are part of the hegemonic group do not question the structures that sustain that hegemony.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate changes to women's representation on boards from an institutional perspective in a particular national context (Australia).

Drawing on institutional theory at the legal, political and social levels the paper identifies the factors through which women's underrepresentation on corporate boards in Australia gained traction over the period 2009-2012.

Through the analysis of the Australian context over the period 2009-2012, the paper proposes a framework to represent the multiple, differentiated and often conflicting spheres affecting women's representation on boards and how this may have wider application internationally.

In focusing on the institutional factors, the paper does not mean to underplay organisational factors relevant to women's access to board positions; rather the authors seek to draw attention to how the organisational factors may be shaped by changing institutional “rules”. From the interrogation of the conditions under which women's underrepresentation on corporate boards in Australia gained traction, the paper provides a conceptual foundation for the emerging study of institutions and women's representation on corporate boards internationally.

The purpose of documenting these institutional changes in Australia is to be instructive to others addressing the practical problem of how to increase women's representation on boards and what institutional factors may need to be considered to prompt change.

The conceptual framework adds to the as yet relatively under-theorised field of women on corporate boards.