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This chapter aims to evaluate the relationship between the representation of women on corporate boards of directors and its impact on firm financial performance.

This study utilized both a systematic review and a meta-analysis, using a sample of 40 published studies, which gleaned financial indicator and observation data from 28 different countries.

As indicated in previous studies, while positive, there was no significant correlation found between the number of women serving on the boards of directors and firm financial performance.

The heterogeneity between the various studies analyzed may present difficulties in making general conclusions. The chapter could also be subject to publication bias, as the selection criteria included may indicate a need for further peer review. Future meta-analyses should include data associated with other financial indicators.

This study shows how composition ratios of men/women serving on corporate boards should be addressed in terms of proving for a greater diversity of leadership perspectives.

Previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses have analyzed country environments as moderators for the relationship between the representation of women on corporate boards and firm financial performance. The present study evaluates possible differences between the impact of the number of women serving on the board of directors on a variety of financial indicators (ROA, ROE, and Tobin’s Q).

We enjoin stakeholder theory, radical-cultural feminist theory, and critical race theory with critical intersectionality to critique findings which suggest that there still are significantly more men than women on nearly every Fortune 500 board of directors, with only six corporations featuring (50-50%) gender equity in 2017. Also, only 4.1% board members are women of color and 9% are men of color. Sixty-five people of color on corporate boards serve on more than one board. This means there are even fewer people of color filling top corporate leadership positions than meets the eye. The proposed alternative course of action is for boards of directors to follow the example of the small handful of peer Fortune 500 corporations that have achieved greater levels of board diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

The spread of corporate board quota legislation is studied in light of diffusion theory. Mechanisms of diffusion, path dependency and critical junctures can contribute to explaining the spread of policy reforms, such as the corporate board quota legislation. The empirical section describes the Norwegian reform process and maps out the ongoing European and global reform processes and debates. Seven countries, in addition to Norway, have in recent years initiated legal reforms and adopted corporate board quota rules: Spain, Iceland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Malaysia. However, the debates over the introduction of parallel legislation extend further, and are a burning issue in several other Western European countries, as well as globally. The discussion addresses why this policy spreads, and tries to understand the complexities of factors that have led to the diffusion of public debate and legal reform of corporate board quota.

Gender equality as well as diversity in workplace in general and management in particular is said to provide a number of benefits, including new ideas and improved communication, insights into female market segmentation, and a greater work-life balance. While importance of women in corporate boards has been long acknowledged, but unfortunately till date females have made only modest gains in terms of directorships on corporate boards. Following the trend of this globalized business domain a paradigm shift in regulatory framework is witnessed in India by Section 149(1) of Companies Act, 2013 through mandatory inclusion of at least one female director in board. Against this backdrop, present study has envisaged the state of affairs relating to the gender diversity and corporate governance practices of selected major listed companies in India. However, it is really premature to reveal any statistically significant difference in their corporate governance disclosure practices based on the gender diversity. However, the positive vibes generated by the gender equality in the boardroom cannot be under-shadowed as across the world various empirical studies revealed that adherence to gender equality in substance over form on longer time horizon will definitely provide right momentum toward competitive advantage on sustainable basis for the business.

Lack of women in boardrooms and management has been a common feature of corporate and agricultural sectors in Norway. In both sectors, quota reforms have been implemented in order to change this situation. This chapter analyses the reasons given for applying gender quotas. While public limited companies were enforced by law to elect a minimum 40 per cent women or men to their boards in 2008, the board of the Federation of Norwegian Agricultural Co-operatives (FNAC) voluntarily decided that a minimum of 40 per cent women or men should be represented in their boards by 2009. How could it be that the agricultural cooperatives introduced this voluntarily, while the business corporations were to be forced by legislation? Public documents, governmental papers, media texts and interview data are analysed to identify and compare the reasoning for gender board quotas. The comparison sheds light on our understanding of the boardroom quota as more complex than simply to deal with gender equality. Traditional gender equality arguments did play a role, but in different ways, articulations and emphasis. More pragmatic reasoning played a role. In FNAC, we saw that the process of organisation-building and modernisation played an important role in the decision to voluntarily introduce gender quotas on boards. Within the corporate sector there were no advocates for introducing gender quotas before profitability arguments came to the fore, but even though such arguments were acceptable to the corporate sector, they did not have the same effect in terms of getting volunteer support for gender quotas.

The aim of our study is to explore the nexus between the gender composition of board and firm financial performance. We use the data of 114 listed banks from 10 Asian emerging economies. Data were extracted from the DataStream for the year 2012–2021. We apply fixed effect model to analyze the data. In addition, we use generalized method of moments (GMM) to verify our main findings. We find that both proxies of board gender composition which are the proportion of female board members and the percentage of female executives on the board have a significant impact on banks' financial performance. Findings suggest that female representation on board provides more insights of monitoring and optimal advisory capabilities and, therefore, gender-diversified board enhances firm performance. Females are more active in business matters and take more interests to fulfill their responsibilities. The results of our study provide useful signals for corporate and regulatory policymakers. Board gender disparities between enterprises should be better understood by all stakeholders to have the optimal combination of board members that ultimately lead to better performance of the firm.

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.

Poland generally has a homogeneous society, conservative towards changes and diversity. The corporate culture in Polish companies reflects this mindset, leading to a lack of inclusion on the corporate board. Additionally, many companies may not fully understand the benefits of an inclusive workplace and legal requirements for gender diversity.

The main objective of the study is to provide a better understanding of the attitude of Polish companies towards diversity policies and reveal differences in actual and expected levels of gender diversity in corporate boards. Thus, we examine compliance with the gender diversity guidelines in the corporate governance code.

Using a sample of 367 Polish companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, we study the composition of the management and supervisory boards to check if they meet the expected gender diversity criteria. We also look at companies' explanations for non-compliance with the main principles regarding diversity policy.

We find that the current composition of corporate boards of stock companies in Poland is male-dominated. Women represent only 12.72% and 17.12% of the management board and supervisory board members, respectively, and 68.94% (42.23%) of companies have no women on their management (supervisory) board. Moreover, only a small percentage of companies comply with the principles related to gender diversity. Qualifications, experience and education are pointed out as the most important criteria for decision-making on board appointments, with only 2% of companies applying gender as an additional criterion. The study suggests that larger companies are more likely to implement diversity policies.

This article addresses gender imbalances in senior company board decision-making positions and analyses the effects of applying gender quotas in European countries, through comparative and interpretative data analysis.

The results clearly demonstrate that those countries implementing quotas not only return higher levels of female representation on their boards of directors – approximately 40% – but also register higher rates of growth over both countries without quotas and those with quotas but without sanctions. Results furthermore suggest that the success of any quota system deeply depends on its formulated terms, on a country's corporate culture, on social receptivity and, at the micro level, on the sector an organisation belongs to.