Search results

This paper examines actors and discourses shaping new Canadian legislation designed to advance diversity in corporate governance.

This paper performs a stakeholder and discourse analysis drawing on texts of parliamentary debates.

The paper illuminates tensions regarding definitions of diversity, its importance for boards of directors and the mechanisms favoured for implementation. Official discourses examined show that, unlike for other political issues, opposition was largely muted, and most stakeholders engaged in the process supported legislation advancing diversity. Nonetheless areas of debate and positioning by actors and suggest important differences, with outcomes linked to non-traditional power bases.

This study provides insights into the discursive environments of organizations and processes relating to promoting diversity and equality in the political decision-making domain, a critical venue for understanding advancement of equity, often neglected in organizational studies.

By understanding the complex and competing discourses surrounding diversity and inclusion at the macro level this paper provides a context for understanding organizational (meso) and individual (micro) beliefs and behaviours.

This study shows how advocacy shapes how policy and legislation are framed and the ways mainstream organizations, including women's groups, may advance gender equality without regard to other dimensions of diversity or intersectionality.

This study maps the political discourse around recent Canadian legislation designed to improve diversity on boards that must, in the Canadian context, address more than gender.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences in the effects of gender equality legislation on employment outcomes among female and male workers in industries with different intensity of foreign investment (namely, foreign direct investment (FDI)-intensive industries and non–FDI–intensive industries). The specific employment outcomes that were studied to compare the effects of the legislation are the working hours, employment opportunities, and wages of female and male workers in Taiwan.

Using data from the annual Manpower Utilization Survey, the authors applied a differences-in-differences-in-differences estimation method to test the effect of gender equality legislation on employment outcomes. By using multinomial logit, the authors measured the effect of the legislation on employment opportunities. To correct for simultaneity and selectivity problems/biases, the authors adopted Heckman two-stage selection procedures. Likewise, the authors used weighted least squares to solve heteroskedasticity in the wage and working hour equations. Further, the instrumental variable (IV) method was used to correct for simultaneity bias in the equation on working hour. The authors applied three stages estimation method following Killingsworth’s (1983) approach to measure the effect of the legislation on wages and working hours.

The authors found the restrictions enforced by the gender equality legislation (namely the Gender Equal Employment Act (GEEA), enacted in 2002) in Taiwan to have made certain impact on the workers’ working conditions in FDI-intensive industries. The major finding indicated that in a country like Taiwan, where the legislature tried tilling the perpetual gender gap in its labour market, by passing a law to counter inequality, could finally narrow the gender gap in wages among workers in the FDI-intensive industries. Although initially after the enactment of the GEEA (between 2002 and 2004), the gender gap in part-timers’ wages has widened, yet over a period of time the gap in their wages too has narrowed down, particularly during 2005-2006. The legislation, however, could not improve the job opportunities for full-time female workers’ in FDI-intensive industries. Besides, post 2002, the female workers were found to have worked for shorter hours than male workers, which according to us, could be largely attributed to the enforcement of the GEEA.

An in-depth analysis of the labour market effects of gender equality legislation should be useful to policymakers, especially those interested in understanding the impact of legislative measures and policy reforms on labour market and employment outcomes across industry types. If enforcement of a gender equality legislation has succeeded in reducing the gender gap more in one set of industries than the others (e.g. foreign owned instead of domestic industries), as the authors noticed in this study, then the same should have a bearing on revamping of future enactment and enforcement too.

Current study findings would not only provide the broad lessons to the policymakers in Taiwan, but the results that have emerged from a country case study could be referred by other growing economies who are enthusiastic about improving female workers’ working conditions through legislative reforms.

This chapter explores the Slovenian equal opportunities policy in the context of globalization debates. Focusing mainly on the equal opportunities legislation in Slovenia and the other recent European Union (EU) member states, the aim of the chapter is to reflect upon globalization as Europeanization and as supraterritorialization. Supraterritorial processes, such as the second wave of Western feminist movement established a mutual relationship with feminists in the former Yugoslavia during the 1980s. Feminism and the feminist movement in Yugoslavia and in Slovenia in the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s, in particular, represent an important basis for gender equality politics and legislation in Slovenia. Another significant element that contributes to the introduction of gender equality legislation is EU integration. In Slovenia and also in other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that recently joined the European Union, the accession played a considerable role in adopting gender equality legislation. Europeanization in the context of equal opportunities policy leads to the homogenization process of standards for gender equality in the EU member states. In terms of legislation in member countries, the Europeanization of gender equality policy is performed as top-down politics particularly in recent member states, such as CEE. Using the example of gender equality policy in Slovenia, this chapter analyzes equal opportunities policy as a concept and as a legal mechanism emerging from the Western tradition, which was directly applied to CEE countries, such as Slovenia, when they joined the EU.

The prevalence of domestic violence in Nigeria may be described as epidemic. To address this scourge, several pieces of legislation have been enacted in the past decade at state and federal levels in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the emerging legislation on domestic violence. This paper thus examines the contents of these laws in a bid to determine the potential of these laws to prevent domestic violence, deter perpetrators from further incidents, punish perpetrators, compensate survivors and provide them with the necessary interventions for their rehabilitation.

The approach adopted is a content analysis of the provisions of the legislation, using salient parameters that have been drawn from documented best practices, specifically the key components for framing of domestic violence legislation around the world.

The author finds that while there is significant attempt in extant legislation to ensure that women are protected within domestic relationships, there are still gaps. Further, the protections are uneven across the states. In addition, there are systemic and contextual challenges that hamper the effectiveness of existing legislation in Nigeria in providing the necessary protections to women.

This study analyses the provisions of some of the legislation currently in place to protect persons from domestic violence. The impact, potential effect and overall utility of these pieces of legislation continue to require examination.

Why did Sweden and Norway arrive at different conclusions with regards to the introduction of corporate gender quotas? The chapter points to two decisive and interwoven explanations.

First, there is a question of varieties of capitalism – even within the Scandinavian model: The strong and traditionally socially responsible Swedish business life enjoyed more autonomy than their Norwegian counterpart, making it harder for the Swedish state to interfere in business life. In Norway, on the other hand, the state was a dominant capitalist itself whereas private owners in general were small and dispersed. Consequently, the capacity of the state to interfere in business life was larger, compared to Sweden.

Second, there is a matter of different cultures concerning gender equality and the attitudes towards state intervention: In Norway, an established gender quota tradition and rather positive attitudes towards state intervention created a moderate discursive climate in gender equality matters. A discursive tradition accepting women as a group as different from men as a group gave politicians a larger scope of action concerning gender equality measures directed at women only. In Sweden, the discursive climate was more hostile towards state intervention, and there was a less strong tradition for legally imposing gender quotas. In addition, Swedish feminists were active and conflict-oriented, thereby creating a polarized gender equality discussion in a public life traditionally oriented towards consensus-based solutions to political discrepancies.

According to some key actors in Iceland’s financial sector, in the wake of the financial crisis, Icelandic financial institutions consciously tried to build trust and a positive new image through, among other things, the visible presence of women on their corporate boards and management teams. By strict adherence to gender quota legislation and through improved corporate governance practices and much stricter control and monitoring, the financial sector sent signals of change to various stakeholders. Now 10 years on, the re-establishment of trust is still a work in progress.

Purpose and methodology – Focusing on the policy contexts of gender education in Taiwan, this chapter uses data from interviews with elite policymakers and policy documents to examine how feminist activists sought to legitimatize gender equity in education in the wake of the comprehensive social and educational reforms of the 1990s and early years of this decade.

Findings – The embedding of gender in education did not follow a smooth path in terms of policy formulation. Feminist activists drove the process of reform by retaining control over the naming of the legislation, and its wording, thus preserving the language and imperatives of gender equity.

Social implications – In this chapter, I examine the formation of the Gender Equity Education Law, detailing the struggles, contentions, and negotiations that underlay the eventual approval of gender reform in education.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter contributes significantly by identifying the necessity to recognize the nature of the state and its relations with society in order to research gender in education in Taiwan.

The purpose of this paper is to create a strong connection among the gender diversity literature in the stream of gender quotas in the international context and the main legislation on gender diversity – the Law 120/2011 “Golfo-Mosca” – in Italy requiring listed companies and companies under the public control to implement policies for increasing board diversity.

This paper adopts a structured literature review method to propose relevant issues on this topic applying an innovative analytical framework based on the “article focus.” Additionally, an interview to a CEO of an Italian Bank has been done.

In this step, results seem to underline the prominence of literature analyzing “woman in board of directors” promoting board diversity in the light of good governance. Additionally, this analysis is functional to the proposition of interesting insights from the Golfo-Mosca Law’s analysis in Italy emphasizing primary effects of its application during past seven years.

Findings of this paper are original, as it is the first time that a research connects results from the structured literature review on gender issues and the related Italian law to draft emerging and thrilling issues in the light of transparent and responsible corporate governance system.

This chapter aims to understand how the role and status of Sámi women in kinship system and in reindeer herding were transformed over time in Norway and Sweden. What is the reason for considering men as reindeer herders and not women? Has it always been men who play a more important role in reindeer herding and so have higher status in Sámi society than women? This has not always been the case. Reindeer herding has instead become a dominant male occupation with the implementation of the nation-states’ reindeer herding legislation. Gender roles in Sámi communities are changing and new strategies for surviving and maintaining a Sámi identity are being formed. Many women in reindeer herding Sámi communities are now working as wage-labourers and professionals, bringing in money to the family. Their income often facilitates the continuation and transformation of subsistence practices, and power relations. This chapter proposes that the ascribed ethnic identity of Sámi women became linked to the identity of their brothers and husbands with the implementation of modern legislation, and still is, although Sweden is striving to be a gender equalitarian society.

Understanding cultural differences is critical to international business success. Hofstede's (1980) model of national culture is widely used to identify such differences. The cultural dimensions identified in Hofstede's model, however, are not gender‐specific, with one exception, masculinity/femininity. Hofstede's data were gathered in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Considerable change has taken place since that time, particularly in the areas of education, legislation, and workforce composition. It is proposed that these changes, among others, may have resulted in gender differences in dimensions of national culture. This study provides an exploratory examination of gender differences in cultural characteristics in two industrialised countries with distinctly different cultures, Japan and the USA. Results indicate that gender differences exist in the power distance dimension for Japan and in the individualism/collectivism dimension for Japan and the USA. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.