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This paper examines the relationship between women on boards and board monitoring tasks depending on group categories identified in the Kanter's theory.

Using a sample of the largest listed companies in Spain, Italy and France during the period 2007–2017, this study tests the effect of women's presence based on the following board categories: (1) skewed boards with a percentage of women that is less than 20%; (2) tilted boards with a percentage of women that ranges from 20% to 33%; (3) tilted boards with a percentage of women that is more than 33%; and (4) balanced boards with an equal or quasi-equal gender distribution. The authors use the case of the gender board quota regulation in different European Union countries.

The results suggest that tilted boards engage in stronger firm monitoring and that the effect of women on board monitoring tasks is positive and statistically significant when the percentage of female directors reaches the threshold of 33%.

The outcomes of this study help policymakers identify the minimum threshold that quota regulations should mandate in order for boards to be effective.

This paper moves forward the ongoing debate about the effect of women on corporate boards, shifting the focus from the ratio or presence of female directors to the size of the group they form within the board. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to test Kanter's theory by investigating the relationship between women on boards and board monitoring.

This study aims to examine the effects of board dynamics produced by reaching a certain proportion of women on board tasks (monitoring, strategy and advisory).

Using a panel of 35 listed companies belonging to FTSE-MIB index, for the years 2008–2015, the hypotheses can be tested by applying random effect regressions. The introduction of gender board quota law in Italy has created a quasi-natural experiment that is applied in the study.

This research provides evidence that reaching 33% women on boards, which is the threshold mandated by the Italian gender board quota law, makes a difference for strategy tasks but not for monitoring tasks. This proportion of women on boards creates the board dynamics necessary to empower all board members, allowing the varied knowledge, skills, backgrounds and personal qualities to be leveraged and used in strategy tasks. For monitoring tasks, obtaining a proportion of 20% women on boards, as a first threshold enforced by the law, is enough to voice their opinion during board meetings and challenge management.

The results show that each set of board tasks requires different dynamics trigged by a specific proportion between a minority (women) and a dominant subgroup (men). To enhance monitoring tasks performance, it is enough to reach a proportion between men and women which makes the women less isolated and more inclined to speak up during the board meetings. In the case of strategy tasks, the improved performance is achieved when the dominant group enticed to hear women’s opinions and responsive to various perspectives. This paper expands the debates going beyond monitoring tasks, showing the importance of board dynamics for engagement in strategy and advisory tasks.

The European Union (EU) has recently adopted gender quotas for corporate boards (CBQ), anticipating ripple effects on women’s careers in the companies concerned, as well as throughout the economy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether CBQ has spurred ripple effects and discuss mechanisms hindering or facilitating women’s occupancy of top executive positions.

Norway was the first country in the world to introduce CBQ in 2003, with full effect from 2008. The policy requires company boards to be composed of 40% of each gender. Drawing on original data mapping boards and executive committees in Norway’s 200 largest companies, the authors analyze the association between CBQ and the gender composition of executive management almost 15 years after the full implementation. The data include both companies covered by the CBQ and large companies not covered.

The investigation does not find a positive association between CBQ and more women in executive positions. Thus, the ripple effect hypothesis of CBQ is not supported. CBQ may have contributed to an increased awareness of gender imbalances, yet these findings indicate that to achieve more gender balance in executive positions, scholars and practitioners may need to focus more on gendered conditions and processes in organizations and society throughout executive careers than on the gender composition of boards.

This paper provides empirical analyses of original data 15 years after the implementation of CBQ. The authors further contribute to scholarly debate by identifying and discussing possible mechanisms that explain how requiring more women on corporate boards may – or may not – have ripple effects on executive management.

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.

This study aims to explore the impact of board size, board gender diversity and federation age on the likelihood of having a female chair in National Sports Federations (NSF).

A quantitative methodology compares 300 sports boards in five countries (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK), using data collected from NSF’s websites.

The board size and federation age have no significant impact on having a female board chair when the countries and the percentage of female directors are included in the model. When the number of women is measured in absolute value rather than in relative terms, the only variable that predicts a woman chair is the country. When the model does not include country differences, the percentage of female directors is key in predicting a chairwoman, and when the number of women is used as a variable instead of the percentage, a board’s smaller size increases the odds of having a chairwoman.

There are some limitations to this study which we believe provide useful directions for future research. Firstly, the authors have not considered the role of gender typing in sports activities which explains the extent that women participate in specific sports (Sobal and Milgrim, 2019) and the related perception of such sports in society. The social representation of sports activities classified as masculine, feminine or gender-neutral can hypothetically influence women’s access to that specific federations’s leadership. The authors included the country factor only partially, as a control variable, as the social representation of sports usually goes beyond national boundaries.

This study has implications for sport policymakers and stakeholders, and for institutions such as the IOC or the European Union that implement equality policies. If the aim is to increase female presence in the highest position of a sports board and to achieve gender equality more generally, other policies need to be implemented alongside gender quotas for the sports boards, namely, those specifically related to the recruitment and selection of the sports board chairs (Mikkonen et al., 2021). For example, given the implications of critical mass and its ability to increase more female’s engagement then the role of existing chairs acting as mentors and taking initiative in this objective may be warranted. Furthermore, attention should be paid to the existing gender portfolio of each board and its subsequent influence on recruiting a female chair, regardless of the organization’s age. Knoppers et al. (2021) concluded that resistance to gender balance by board members is often related to discriminatory discourses against women. The normalization of the discourses of meritocracy, neoliberalism, silence/passivity about the responsibility of structures and an artificial defence of diversity emphasise that equality should not only be determined by women (Knoppers et al., 2021).

When countries are included in the model, the results suggest that the social representation of a female board member is different from that of a female board chair.

The originality of the study is that it shows the factors that constrain women taking up a chair position on NSFs. Theoretically, it contributes to existing literature by demonstrating how a critical mass of females on boards may also extend to the higher and most powerful position of chair.

The corporate communications literature recently focused on corporate board gender diversity, specifically looking at two central aspects: gender quotas and equitable target percentages for women on corporate boards. This paper extends the debate by focusing on board gender diversity and critical mass theory.

The paper gives a conceptual viewpoint on the issues raised in the literature on board gender diversity through a critical mass theory lens.

Following the 2022 European Union (EU) directive, all EU member states will have to attain a 40% women representation on large corporate boards to achieve board gender diversity and what has been termed a “critical mass”. However, the literature indicates that gender diversity benefits may not be achieved if a critical mass is not composed of independent women directors who create a voice that produces a collective action. The authors highlight why a critical mass may not be achieved. The inconsistency in prior research linking corporate board gender diversity to economic performance may result from the critical mass of women directors not reflecting an independent collective action. However, as gender-diverse boards evolve, the authors argue that women will not just be seen as female directors but will be accepted on equal terms with their male counterparts and have an equal voice; gender will no longer be an issue and critical mass theory may then become irrelevant.

From a corporate communications perspective, this study will focus the minds of human resources (HR) professionals on the importance of the composition of women on corporate boards if the HR professionals wish to obtain the full potential benefits of board gender diversity. Theoretically, this study highlights the importance of critical mass and collective action when researching the economic benefits of corporate board gender diversity. Investment analysts may wish to look more closely at the structure of corporate boards and not just the numbers.

This paper gives a conceptual viewpoint on the critical mass theory and corporate board gender diversity, identifying that it is not just the numbers that are important but also the issue of minority independence and collective action, and this is, therefore, unique in this respect. Future research should identify if a critical mass (not just numbers) of women on corporate boards has been achieved. Only then that the linkage, based on critical mass theory, between board gender diversity and corporate performance/profitability can be made. Knowing whether board sizes are being increased to accommodate the added female directors would be also interesting, or will the new female directors replace existing male directors? However, the most important research question, once gender diversity has been achieved, could be: Is critical mass theory relevant with respect to board gender diversity?

This paper aims to present a comprehensive theoretical framework that seeks to explore the impact of cultural, legal and social factors within the external environment on the relationship between women on corporate boards and firm performance. By investigating these boundary conditions, the paper aims to shed light on how these pressures influence the aforementioned relationship.

To build the sample of companies, the authors selected companies listed on the stock exchanges of countries that represent a diverse range of institutional contexts. These contexts encompass countries with individualistic cultures, collectivist cultures, environments with mandatory gender quotas, environments without gender quotas, contexts with substantial progress toward gender equality and contexts with limited progress in achieving gender equality. To test the hypotheses, the authors used linear regression analysis as a primary analytical approach. Furthermore, they used the propensity score matching technique to address potential issues of reverse causality and unobserved heterogeneity.

The findings indicate that the positive influence of a critical mass of women on corporate boards on firm performance is contingent upon the institutional context. Specifically, the authors observed that this relationship is strengthened in institutional contexts characterized by an individualistic culture, whereas it is not as pronounced in collectivist cultural contexts. Furthermore, this research provides compelling evidence that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards leads to enhanced firm performance in institutional settings where gender quotas are not binding, as opposed to settings where such quotas are enforced. Lastly, the results demonstrate that the presence of a critical mass of women on boards is associated with improved firm performance in institutional settings characterized by low progress in achieving gender equality. However, the authors did not observe the same effect in institutional contexts that have made significant strides toward gender equality.

This research offers a unique perspective by investigating the relationship between women’s presence on corporate boards and firm performance across different institutional contexts. In this investigation, the authors recognize that gender diversity on corporate boards is not a one-size-fits-all solution and that its effects can be shaped by the unique institutional contexts in which companies operate.

This study aims to provide a comparative portrait of the profile of men and women in the boardrooms of listed companies (Euronext Lisbon, Portugal) during the first stage of the gender quota law, by comparing the profile of those board members appointed before the mandated quota law and those appointed after it. This study also seeks to contribute to a critical review of the main reservations expressed by some core institutional actors, who initially voiced their concern that it might be difficult to find women in equal conditions to men in terms of their cumulative experience and qualifications to serve as board members.

In addition to providing a comparative descriptive analysis of male and female board members’ profiles before and after the mandated gender quota law, an aggregate professional endowments measure (professional endowments Index) is also calculated.

The research findings show that, in the first stage of the quota law, men and women appointed as board members after the mandated gender quota law are fundamentally similar in their professional attributes, forming a more homogeneous boardroom than those holding board positions before it.

This study contributes to the literature on the profile of the men and women serving on the publicly listed company boards in Portugal, by comparing their profiles before and after the mandated gender quota law. This study also fills a gap in the literature, as studies about gender quotas and corporate boards relating to Portugal and Southern European countries in general are still relatively scant. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study carried out into the gender quota law on corporate boards in Portugal.

This paper aims to examine empirically the impact of gender diversity on corporate performance by both comparing different positions occupied by female directors on the boards and their personal-specific characteristics.

The paper examines a sample of Italian listed companies during 2006–2015. To deal with endogeneity issues, the authors use a generalized method of moments as an empirical methodology.

The empirical findings show that the positive effect of both independent and executive women directors on firm performance is moderated by the specific characteristics of female directors. Specifically, the analyses show that foreign and busy females negatively impact on performance. Conversely, graduate female directors strengthen the positive link between executive women and firm performance.

The paper sheds light on the consequences of appointing different types of female directors (i.e. independent, executive, graduate, foreign and busy) on firm performance. Our empirical research that investigates the association between gender diversity and performance in the Italian context based on a longitudinal study, which involves a period of ten years, allowing consideration both of the years before and after the introduction of the gender quota law (Golfo–Mosca law).

This paper aims to appraise the effectiveness of gender quotas in breaking the glass ceiling for women on boards (WoBs) in companies that are legally obliged to comply with quotas (listed companies and state-owned companies, LP) and in those that are not (unlisted companies and nonstate-owned companies, NLNP). Furthermore, it investigates the glass cliff phenomenon, according to which women are more likely to be appointed to apical positions in underperforming companies.

A balanced panel data of the top 116 Italian companies by total assets, which are present in both 2010 and 2017, is used for estimating ANOVA tests across sectors and fixed-effects panel regression models.

WoBs significantly increased in both the LP and the NLNP companies, and this increase was greater in the financial sector. Furthermore, the relationship between the percentage of WoBs and firm performance is not linear but depends on the financial corporate health. Specifically, the situation in which a woman ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high (glass cliff phenomenon) is only present in companies with the lowest performance in the sample, in other words, when negative values of Roe and negative or zero values of Roa occur together.

These findings have relevant policy implications that encourage the adoption of gender quotas even in specific top positions, such as CEO or president, as this could lead to a “double spillover effect” both vertically, that is, in other job positions, and horizontally, toward other companies not targeted by quotas. Practical interventions to support women in glass cliff positions, on the other hand, relate to the extent of supervisor mentoring and support to prevent women from leaving director roles and strengthen their chances for career advancement.

The authors explore the ability of gender quotas to break through the glass ceiling in companies that are not legally obliged to do so, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, the glass cliff phenomenon in the Italian context.