554.6
Included But Still Not Equal? Board Interaction and Gender Segregation
Included but still not equal? Board interaction and gender segregation
Norway was the first country in the world to pass legislation specifying gender representation on company boards of directors. The Norwegian Parliament passed a new regulation in December 2003that required at least 40 per cent of each gender on company boards. Before the reform, law opponents claimed that the new women directors would not be able to, or allowed to, participate fully in board decision-making; instead their role would only be window dressing. Based on a questionnaire sent to all directors in public limited companies in 2009, the article studies this allegation.
Results show that women directors report less ability to influence board decision-making than men directors. Moreover, women to a lesser extent feel they are part of the inner circle on boards, where such phenomena are perceived to exist. These tendencies also hold when we control for a lot of other independent variables such as board role, ownership interest, number of directorships and occupation. Hence, the he quota regulated boards show tendencies of hierarchical gender re-segregation.