tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/boardroom-diversity-31636/articlesBoardroom diversity – The Conversation2019-01-07T10:50:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1069052019-01-07T10:50:55Z2019-01-07T10:50:55ZFootball’s gender problem: from the pitch to the boardroom, women are still being blocked from the top jobs<p>Although the world of English football has long been considered a <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137590244">man’s world</a>, women now make up a sizeable proportion of football players and fans. But despite this, the football boardroom still remains a distinctly male domain.</p>
<p>The Football Association (FA) released its first <a href="http://www.thefa.com/news/2018/mar/01/fa-gender-pay-report-2017-270218">gender pay gap report</a> in March 2018, revealing a 23% gender pay gap in favour of men. The FA’s explanation for this pay gap was that fewer women than men worked in senior leadership roles. The FA suggested that this disparity was the result of a “pipeline” problem, stating that they needed “a better pipeline of talented women” to fill leadership roles. </p>
<p>It’s a similar story across club football, with men’s professional clubs averaging a 66% <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43638672">gender pay gap</a>. Although the gap decreases to 17% when clubs exclude their player wages, only 21 out of 48 clubs eligible to release their gender pay gap provided this additional data – meaning the average gender pay gap could be higher. While many clubs were keen to note the influence of high player wages on the data, others acknowledged that having a lack of women in senior roles contributed to their overall gender pay gap. Again, women’s absence in the boardroom was largely explained by a shortage of women who are able or willing to do the job. </p>
<p>However, my <a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?mode=staff&id=16782">doctoral research</a> at Durham University and the National Football Museum offers an alternative theory. This research, which focuses on men’s professional football in England, is challenging the pipeline theory by uncovering the true extent of women’s leadership work in football. </p>
<p>It shows that nearly a third of workers in men’s professional football are women, and that in the last 30 years, over 700 women (and counting) have held leadership roles in the men’s game. The problem, it seems, is that women’s route to the boardroom is blocked. </p>
<h2>Pipeline theory</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000768138890016X">pipeline theory</a> emerged as a common explanation for gender inequality in the boardroom. Supporters of this theory argued that women’s under-representation in leadership roles was the result of a shortage of qualified women workers at the lower levels of the organisation. The belief was that increasing the flow of women in the pipeline would, in time, lead to equity at the top. </p>
<p>But as women’s participation in paid work and higher education increased towards the end of the 20th century, inequality at the top remained. As a result, the pipeline theory attracted substantial <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/promise-future-leadership-research-program-highly-talented-employees-pipeline">criticism</a>. In recent decades, focus has instead shifted to cultural and structural barriers to women’s progression. And yet, the pipeline theory is still being used to explain a lack of women in football leadership. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248258/original/file-20181202-194944-1b32qgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage of female directors in football.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is because the pipeline theory presents a convenient account of women’s work in the men’s game. Blaming gender imbalance on women’s inability or willingness to work in football absolves organisations of responsibility for gender equality. In football, this account proves especially convincing given football’s reputation as a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263276486003001007">male preserve</a>. Arguably, the pipeline theory has endured in football because little empirical evidence has been offered to challenge it, until now.</p>
<h2>What’s the truth?</h2>
<p>Although my research found that around 27% of workers in men’s professional club football are women, the proportion of women drops to 14% in the top pay quartile – and falls even further to just 7% in the boardroom. </p>
<p>While there are significantly fewer women working in football than men, as the pipeline theory suggests, you would still expect to see proportional representation at all levels. But data shows women’s presence actually declines the further up the football ladder you climb. </p>
<p>There are some clubs that buck this trend. Tottenham Hotspur, for example, has proportionally more women on the board than in the overall workforce – as do Leicester City, Chelsea, Aston Villa, and Sheffield Wednesday. Sunderland AFC, Reading, and Scunthorpe United also have proportional representation on their board. Nevertheless, these clubs are in the minority. </p>
<h2>Tough to the top</h2>
<p>More than 700 women have held leadership roles in men’s professional football since the late 1980s. These roles include directors, executives, and heads of department. Over 230 of these women currently work in a leadership capacity in football. </p>
<p>Many others have left football but continue to work in leadership in another industry. These women are a pool of seemingly qualified leaders who can contend for the most senior roles in football. Yet, despite this, women are still not making it to the top.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252469/original/file-20190104-32121-1r8d1i4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Susanna Dinnage was due to become chief executive at the Premier League in 2019 but has now announced she will no longer be taking up the position.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.womeninfootball.co.uk/news/2018/12/31/susanna-dinnage-makes-u-turn-over-premier-league-role/">Women In Football</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Occupational segregation could go some way to explain the block in the pipeline. Most of these women have occupied leadership roles in commercial, sales, ticketing, and retail. In contrast, few women have held leadership roles in operations, football administration, and business development. The problem is that certain roles provide clearer pathways to the boardroom than others – and these pathways are <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Gender_segregation_at_work.html?id=rS-7AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">historically gendered</a>. </p>
<p>My research with women who have worked in senior roles in men’s football will help to understand how women experience leadership roles in football. And it is hoped that by tracing their routes into leadership roles, a better picture of why women are really absent from the boardroom can be discovered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amée Gill is a PhD candidate at Durham University. Amée receives funding from the Arts And Humanities Research Council and the National Football Museum. </span></em></p>Why are there so few women in the football boardroom?Amée Gill, Doctoral researcher in the Department of Sport & Exercise Sciences, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1047142018-10-10T12:54:18Z2018-10-10T12:54:18ZMandating boardroom diversity can narrow the opportunity gap for women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240037/original/file-20181010-72100-hlsjpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-female-boss-leading-corporate-multiracial-1022439985?src=iUyM_-ltPUYsUpdKsk5RdA-1-0">Fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kudos to California, where the state governor, Jerry Brown, recently signed into law <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/01/max-benwell-maxbenwellguardiancouk-california-women-board-directors-companies-law-jerry-brown-">new requirements</a> for companies headquartered in the state to include more women on their boards. The law will force heavyweights such as Apple, Facebook, Tesla, and Google (Alphabet) to revamp their boards to comply.</p>
<p>Supporters believe increasing board diversity is important for both social and economic reasons; that a more diverse pool of directors creates a better board, with different and more innovative perspectives. Opponents of the law question its efficacy, saying it’s like <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-reach-the-board-women-need-support-to-stay-in-the-workforce-12685">treating a symptom rather than the disease</a>. But because it’s human behaviour that we’re trying to change in this case, treating the symptom can be a big first step towards treating the disease.</p>
<p>Specifically, all companies in California will be required to have at least one woman on their board by 2019. Boards with five or fewer directors will need two female directors by 2021 and larger boards will need three. Non-compliant firms would be subject to (relatively small) fines.</p>
<p>To assess the scope of the change, let’s review the statistics on diversity in the upper ranks of corporations. In 2017, for the 1,500 largest US companies (all board statistics are my own, using data from advisory firm <a href="https://www.issgovernance.com/solutions/governance-advisory-services/">ISS</a>):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>5% of firms have a female CEO.</p></li>
<li><p>4% of firms have a female board chair.</p></li>
<li><p>16% of directors are women.</p></li>
<li><p>15% of audit and compensation committees have a female chair.</p></li>
<li><p>Female directors own 75% the amount of stock that male directors own; this is independent of their tenure on the board.</p></li>
<li><p>7% of boards have at least three women and 2% have at least four women; all 1,500 boards have at least three men.</p></li>
<li><p>Women account for <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_318.30.asp?current=yes">57% of all college degrees and 47% of all business degrees</a> in the US.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Exercising influence</h2>
<p>With such gender imbalances, most experts agree that board diversity needs to change. But mandating quotas doesn’t convince everyone.</p>
<p>One concern comes from an efficient markets perspective. This argument suggests that if having more women on boards were best for business, greedy value-maximising companies would already be doing it. This is precisely the business case for boardrooms being 84% male. This business case assumes that the market for corporate directors is efficient – but it is anything but. It’s a cartel controlled by middle-aged white men who are loathe to give up their privileges.</p>
<p>Stanford law professor, <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/joseph-a-grundfest/">Joseph Grundfest</a>, makes a different <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3248791">market-based argument that has more relevance</a>. He suggests that the most effective way to bring change to the boardroom is for large, institutional investors – like the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) – to exercise their capital markets influence and refuse to invest in companies that do not meet certain diversity, equity or other standards. Non-compliant firms will see their stock prices fall and executives and directors will earn less money. This can work; hurting executives and directors in their bank accounts certainly should make them listen. And it can be done in addition to regulators mandating certain standards.</p>
<p>This approach, however, may have limited impact. Even the largest institutional investors aren’t always able to effect corporate behaviour. In June 2018, BlackRock Inc, one of the world’s largest institutional investors, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-musk-blackrock/blackrock-voted-to-replace-teslas-musk-with-independent-chairman-idUSKCN1LG01R">supported a proposal</a> to formally separate the roles of CEO and board chair at Tesla, to make shareholders less dependent on one single individual. The company opposed the idea, and, despite BlackRock’s 6% ownership stake, the proposal was defeated, 84% to 16%. Three months later, after a pattern of unpredictable and irresponsible behaviour by CEO and chair Elon Musk, the Securities & Exchange Commission intervened, requiring <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226">the company to separate the positions</a>. Left to their own devices, companies don’t always know best.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240041/original/file-20181010-72124-x2iizm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shareholders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/banker-stands-on-pedestal-coins-looks-251435347?src=GNeTyGYnxsl2NSb92jf9AQ-1-17">Gopixa/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Admittedly, California’s new law is imperfect. It will likely have some short-term negative consequences – including legal battles, firm relocations, and female directors <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/09/03/are-gender-quotas-good-for-business">being seen as token hires</a>. </p>
<p>Another issue concerns how companies define “diversity”. <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/10/research-when-boards-broaden-their-definition-of-diversity-women-and-people-of-color-lose-out">Recent research suggested</a> that when companies do expand their definition of “diversity” beyond gender or ethnicity, they end up appointing directors with different experiences and perspectives – but at the expense of women and minorities. That is, boards do not increase the number of diverse directors on the board, but rather increase the types of diversity on the board. A board may go from having one female and two non-white directors, for example, to having two female and one non-white director. So firms may appoint more women but at the expense of having fewer other underrepresented minorities or vice versa.</p>
<h2>Narrowing the opportunity gap</h2>
<p>To best appreciate the benefits associated with governments mandating gender boardroom diversity, we must focus on the long-term.</p>
<p>Harvard economics professor, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/goldin">Claudia Goldin</a>, is arguably <a href="https://harvardmagazine.com/2016/05/reassessing-the-gender-wage-gap">the world’s foremost authority</a> on the gender income gap. Her research highlights two important points. Yes, women earn <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/womens-median-earnings-82-percent-of-mens-in-2016.htm">78 cents for every dollar</a> that men earn. However, this is because women are not doing the same work and working the same hours as men. Some of the difference is due to the jobs people choose; most of the difference is due to how jobs are compensated. She concludes that the income disparity is not due to wage discrimination but because the labour markets <a href="http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast">incentivise men and women differently</a>. That is, the income gap exists because there’s an opportunity gap.</p>
<p>If wage discrimination is not the problem, then we need to stop focusing on the 78 cents ratio. This gap is too easy for companies to address: they can hire a woman and a man, with similar credentials, for similar jobs, and pay them the same when they start. Problem solved. But doing so does little to address who is more likely to get promoted, who is more likely to end up in the C-suite or who is more likely to end up in the boardroom. When companies, the media, and politicians focus on the 78 cents number, they are focused on the symptom rather than the cause – and it is easy for companies to address while they continue to ignore the cause.</p>
<p>Oxford finance professor, Renée Adams, <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-reach-the-board-women-need-support-to-stay-in-the-workforce-12685">has also written, on this site</a> and elsewhere, that in order to reach the boardroom, women need to stay in the workforce. <a href="https://theconversation.com/sorry-but-theres-no-business-case-for-gender-quotas-9145">She is not a fan of quotas</a>, in general, but would rather see regulators focus on other structural initiatives that encourage women to stay in the workforce.</p>
<p>California’s new law is just such a structural initiative. The same is true about national quotas for gender diversity in Norway, France, Italy and many other countries. Changing histories of economic, cultural and social traditions is a long-term investment. And men and women have always responded to how markets incentivise them. Mandating quotas for gender diversity changes the labour market incentives for both men and women.</p>
<p>When women see that they have greater opportunity to join a board, they are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000269">more likely to pursue executive positions</a>. When women see that they are more likely to be successful in executive positions, they are more likely to stay in the workforce longer or to return to the workforce after having children. And when women see that their career potential is unlimited, they are more likely to pursue college majors and initial jobs that will tap into that unlimited potential. California’s new law requiring boardroom diversity won’t solve all gender equity issues in the short-term, but it can go a long way to narrowing the opportunity gap over the long-term.</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I am a middle-aged white male. I have never questioned my opportunities. Business and society would be better off if nobody else had to question their opportunities, either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Bolton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new law in California requires women to be on boards. It’s the right structural change that’s much needed in business.Brian Bolton, Associate Director, Global Board Centre, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/940712018-04-12T12:47:38Z2018-04-12T12:47:38ZWomen are shattering the glass ceiling only to fall off the glass cliff<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214142/original/file-20180410-560-1n37czg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taking the fall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/this-bilingual-somali-newspaper-is-beating-the-media-at-its-own-game-94447">shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The glass ceiling is an idea familiar to many. It refers to the invisible barrier that seems to exist in many fields and which prevents women from achieving senior positions. </p>
<p>Less well-known, but arguably a more pernicious problem, is the “glass cliff”. Originally recognised by academics Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2005.00433.x">back in 2005</a>, this is the phenomenon of women making it to the boardroom but finding themselves disproportionately represented in untenable leadership positions.</p>
<p>Ryan and Haslam presented evidence that women were indeed starting to secure seats at boardroom tables. But the problem was that their positions were inherently unstable. These women would then find themselves in an unsustainable leadership position from which they would be ousted with evidence of apparent failure. The title of their paper sums it up: women are over‐represented in precarious leadership positions.</p>
<p>Subsequent research in an <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01541.x">array</a> of <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-26139-001">environments</a> has demonstrated that this is not an isolated issue, nor is it unique to certain industries or geographical locations. It reveals that women in top leadership positions seem to be routinely handed inherently unsolvable problems. </p>
<p>These are problems that they strive very hard to address – but no matter the effort, these problems cannot be solved. The women in charge are then still held personally accountable for failure, ultimately leading to their resignation or dismissal. This creates a damaging, self-fulfilling prophecy that women are unsuitable for leadership positions. Not only does it knock the confidence of the woman in question, it also makes organisations wary of recruiting women to these positions.</p>
<h2>A chequered picture</h2>
<p>The glass cliff theory and its supporting evidence appears, at face value, to be at odds with evidence from other sources which confirms that more women than ever before <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl4Ssk3-EX0">are making it to the boardroom</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dl4Ssk3-EX0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But the detail of gender representation in large organisations presents a more chequered picture. Plus, the snapshots and headlines of more women in the boardroom tend to lack the granular analysis of boardroom turnover – that women are more likely to be over‐represented on boards of companies <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8551.12046">that are more precarious</a>.</p>
<p>There is also the more challenging question of why any organisation would actively set out to sabotage someone’s career, which is what the glass cliff situation appears to do. This is where the data gets really interesting.</p>
<p>A wider look at glass cliff scenarios <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/09534810710724748">reveals</a> that in most situations the women in question have experience of the organisation when they are recruited into the top position. They are not external hires, they are internal. This means that, in practice, these women are far more likely to have a fundamental understanding of the politics of the organisation, its culture and power brokers.</p>
<p>The evidence seems to suggest that these women find themselves with the choice of accepting a glass cliff position or resigning altogether. Having worked for many years to secure a leadership or executive role, it is perhaps less surprising to understand why these women feel a sense of obligation to take on what appears to be an impossible challenge.</p>
<h2>Support structures</h2>
<p>The size of the step up to a senior executive role should not be understated. Support, in the form of coaching and mentoring for senior executives, is repeatedly shown to be vital if they are to become successful and <a href="https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/842">begin to make a real impact</a>. What appears to be a common characteristic across glass cliff situations is that the women in these roles lack this ongoing support.</p>
<p>What remains unclear is whether this is because the organisation is unwilling to provide it. Or, worse, is blithely unaware that for a woman stepping up to an executive position with no clear role model or social support network, then she is likely to need even more help and likely of a different nature to her male colleagues.</p>
<p>The benign neglect shown by organisations towards female senior executives represents a worrying trend. It is all very well promoting women into the boardroom, but failing to support them when they are there is equally damaging. Arguably it undoes all of the good work, resources and effort to transition women into the boardroom in the first place.</p>
<p>Empirical evidence also demonstrates that women in particular suffer from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2011/10/19/women-feel-like-frauds-failures-tina-fey-sheryl-sandberg/#986ef030fb75">impostor syndrome</a>. This is the idea that successful people feel that they have become successful through luck, not their own hard work or ability and will be “found out” and fired or demoted.</p>
<p>It is understandable that this is likely to be particularly acute when a woman is the only female around the boardroom table. Impostor syndrome isn’t confined to women, but it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/someone-will-find-me-out-impostor-phenomenon-and-the-toll-it-takes-on-working-women-84729">markedly more present</a>, and it would seem that one of the possible explanations for a glass cliff scenario presenting itself is that organisations simply fail to consider that women in this position are likely to need a different kind of support in their new role.</p>
<p>Helping to create gender parity in boardrooms is widely shown to be beneficial on <a href="http://www.aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/acch-50486">multiple</a> <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/14720700610655141">metrics</a>. But if organisations aren’t keeping good people in the boardroom because of a failure to appreciate individual differences, then this last hurdle arguably undoes all of the good work that quotas, all-female shortlists, and gender pay gap reporting strives to achieve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susanna Whawell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More women are making it to the boardroom but are often promoted to an untenable and precarious leadership position.Susanna Whawell, PhD Researcher, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913022018-03-08T11:40:32Z2018-03-08T11:40:32ZVery few women oversee US companies. Here’s how to change that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209402/original/file-20180307-146697-1ggogv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men's dominance in the boardroom has barely changed over the years. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Women’s participation in the labor force <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002">has soared</a> over the past 50 years, rising from 32 percent in 1948 to 56.7 percent as of January. </p>
<p>Yet those gains have not translated into the U.S. corporate boardroom, where women <a href="http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=5A7755E1-EFDD-1973-A0B5C54AFF3FB0AE">held just 16.6 percent</a> of seats in 2015, according to a Credit Suisse analysis of the world’s largest 3,400 or so companies. That’s up a little from the 12.7 percent five years earlier but still disappointingly low.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=loPMxzAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars</a> of corporate governance, we felt the answer to this puzzle might require a bit of digging beyond this simple percentage. So we crunched the numbers on individual states over an 11-year period to see where women fared better in the boardroom and why. </p>
<p>Our findings were startling but also suggest a solution.</p>
<h2>The case for parity</h2>
<p>The ethical case for a government promoting or even mandating gender equality, whether in the classroom, office or boardroom, seems fairly straightforward.</p>
<p>Beyond that, research suggests that companies with more female directors achieve better <a href="http://amj.aom.org/content/58/5/1546.short">financial results</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/corg.12165/full">are more socially responsible</a> and are less likely to engage in wrongdoing such as <a href="http://amj.aom.org/content/58/5/1572.short">fraud</a>. </p>
<p>While many countries in Europe have used quotas to get more women on corporate boards, in the U.S. there is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/07/world/europe/german-law-requires-more-women-on-corporate-boards.html">resistance</a> to doing so. Instead, federal government agencies have focused on disclosure, which <a href="https://web.northeastern.edu/ruthaguilera/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/36.-Terjesen-Aguilera-Lorenz-2014-JBE.pdf">has had little impact</a>.</p>
<p>Under the U.S. Constitution, states have significant power in setting their own policies. And while none have instituted a gender quota for corporate boards, some states have gone further than the federal government on a variety of policies that affect women’s career advancement, such as workplace discrimination and family planning. We theorized that these differences might help explain the prevalence of women on boards in some states and not others.</p>
<h2>A wide range of representation</h2>
<p>To find out, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318300444">we examined</a> the boardroom diversity of the 1,500 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 1500 index, which represents about 90 percent of total U.S. market capitalization. </p>
<p>We focused on the period 2003 to 2014 using data provided by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=3419764">Governance Metrics International</a>, which compiles governance information annually from companies’ proxy statements and public filings. </p>
<p>Nationally, our data showed that just 15.2 percent of S&P 1500 board seats were occupied by women in 2014, up modestly from 9.7 percent in 2003. One explanation for why our figures show less representation than the Credit Suisse data cited earlier is that the largest corporations have done a better job promoting women, while the S&P 1500 includes medium-sized companies as well. This is a correlation also supported by our data.</p>
<p><iframe id="sLPM4" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sLPM4/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Our sample included companies headquartered in 49 states (none were in Wyoming). As some states only had a few companies listed in the index during the period and others had many, we controlled for the economic size of each state as well as several other factors, such as a company’s size and state demographics. This allowed us to more fairly compare each state’s figures and isolate potential explanations. </p>
<p>Overall, the national trend of increasing representation persisted in the vast majority of states from 2003 to 2014, while four experienced slight declines. Not a single woman served on the board of the sole Alaskan company in the index during the period. Beyond that, the data showed wide variation from state to state. </p>
<p><iframe id="HlGEE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/HlGEE/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In 2014, the worst states for women on boards were Louisiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Alaska, all of which had less than 10 percent. New Mexico boasted the most women on boards at 44 percent, followed by Vermont, Delaware, Iowa and Maine. </p>
<p>Another way of looking at the data is to focus not just on basic representation but at what percentage of companies have three or more women in the boardroom. Research shows that this <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10551-011-0815-z.pdf">can constitute a critical mass</a> that enables them to make a real difference by affecting a board’s working style and dynamic and creating a more favorable environment for women’s perspectives to be heard. </p>
<p>By that measure, the data are a lot more discouraging. Only 11 states, such as Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington, had even a third of their companies meet this threshold. In 18 other states, including Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia, less than 10 percent had at least three women on their boards. </p>
<p><iframe id="4Zzi5" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4Zzi5/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Women’s rights</h2>
<p>What explains the differences? </p>
<p>Our initial hypothesis was that state policies had something to do with it because <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0007650315613980">existing research</a> has found a link between national governmental policies and participation of women in leadership positions. </p>
<p>So we examined whether states had gender-related policies in three general areas: reproductive rights, anti-discrimination and work-family balance. We then analyzed several databases to find out which states had these policies. </p>
<p>We found that that companies headquartered in states with policies that provided more protections for women than the federal government requires in terms of reproductive rights, such as public funding for abortion and laws against gender discrimination, tended to have a greater share of female directors on their boards. Interestingly, we didn’t find a link with work-life balance policies such as better access to maternity leave. </p>
<p>For example, states like Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington – all of which have a greater level of female board representation than the national average over the 11-year period – also had most of the policies we identified. All three provide funding for abortions through Medicaid and have passed <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/discrimination-employment.aspx">gender discrimination protections</a> that are stronger than exist at the federal level. </p>
<p>In contrast, states where relatively few women sat on corporate boards, such as Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, Georgia, Nebraska and Virginia, tended to have weaker policies protecting women and their rights. </p>
<p><iframe id="vtRyt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vtRyt/7/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Overall, we found a strong statistical link between these types of policies and female representation in the boardroom, which held even after controlling for alternative explanations, such as the political orientation of the state and cultural attitudes toward women based on surveys. To us, the point isn’t that these policies in particular lead to more women on boards, but that they broadly represent a favorable cultural environment for women in the workplace. </p>
<p>There were a few notable exceptions to our findings. California, for example, which has progressive policies in these areas, boasts few women on its boards, or about 14 percent in 2014. One possible explanation could be that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20159898.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Acccc9b1c2022ca9e0a0f530fa8775900">older companies are more likely to have more women on their boards</a>. A significant number of California companies in the index were relatively young. </p>
<h2>Equity without quotas</h2>
<p>Making it into the highest echelons of a corporation is very difficult and typically requires opportunity for training and access to social networks, both of which are jeopardized when, for example, women suffer harassment on the job or incur a “motherhood penalty.” It is not surprising, for example, that female directors are significantly more likely to be <a href="http://www.heidrick.com/Knowledge-Center/Publication/2012-Board-Of-Directors-Survey">single and childless</a>, compared with their male peers.</p>
<p><iframe id="XyeZQ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/XyeZQ/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>European countries such as <a href="https://web.northeastern.edu/ruthaguilera/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/36.-Terjesen-Aguilera-Lorenz-2014-JBE.pdf">Iceland, Norway</a> and <a href="https://www.la-croix.com/Economie/Social/Les-femmes-restent-tres-minoritaires-dans-conseils-dadministration-2017-01-03-1200814337">France</a> have become <a href="http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=5A7755E1-EFDD-1973-A0B5C54AFF3FB0AE">world leaders</a> in female representation by instituting quotas. In 2017, <a href="http://eige.europa.eu/gender-statistics/dgs/indicator/ta_pwr_bus_bus__wmid_comp_compbm">women held more than 40 percent</a> of the seats on the largest listed companies in all three countries, a significant increase from a decade earlier. </p>
<p>The good news is that our findings suggest that states – as well as the federal government – have policy options at their disposal short of establishing gender quotas to increase female representation in the boardroom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The share of board seats held by women varies dramatically across the country, from none in Alaska to close to half in New Mexico. A few key policies may make all the difference.Yannick Thams, Assistant Professor of Strategy and International Business, Suffolk UniversityBari Bendell, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, Suffolk UniversitySiri Terjesen, Dean's Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship, American University Kogod School of BusinessLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889082017-12-20T10:10:04Z2017-12-20T10:10:04ZCharities need a more diverse set of trustees – here’s how to recruit them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199444/original/file-20171215-17884-h1jw66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How to make a charity board look more like this. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bemoaning a lack of diversity on the boards that run UK charities, a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/taken-on-trust-awareness-and-effectiveness-of-charity-trustees-in-england-and-wales">recent report</a> from the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission/about">Charity Commission</a> called for a national campaign to encourage a wider range of people to serve as <a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/governance/getting-started-in-governance/trustees">trustees</a>. </p>
<p>It’s clear that a change of tack is needed to recruit a more diverse range of charity trustees. We suggest two possible solutions – charities could create a pipeline for younger people to get involved, or even offer them the chance to shadow existing board members to learn the ropes. </p>
<p>There are more than <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-register-statistics/recent-charity-register-statistics-charity-commission">167,000 charitable</a> or voluntary organisations regulated by the commission and each is governed by a <a href="https://knowhownonprofit.org/governance/board-responsibilities">board of trustees</a>. This means that there are about <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/taken-on-trust-awareness-and-effectiveness-of-charity-trustees-in-england-and-wales">700,000 trustees</a> in England and Wales, the vast majority (98%) of whom <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/payments-to-charity-trustees-what-the-rules-are">are volunteers</a>. These <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/careers/trustee-to-pay-or-not-to-pay">unremunerated servants</a> of society are just a part of the <a href="https://data.ncvo.org.uk/a/almanac17/fast-facts-6/">one in four people</a> who volunteer regularly in these organisations. </p>
<p>The Charity Commission’s report found that 64% of trustees are male and only 36% are female – rising to 72% and 28% in the largest charities. The average age of a trustee is 60 to 62-years-old – typically about 20 years older than the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11698391/Middle-aged-Britain-average-age-hits-40-as-population-surges-to-record.html">average person</a>. When it comes to ethnicity, 92% of trustees are white – roughly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/11/2011-census-data-key-points">six percentage points higher</a> than the <a href="https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks201uk">English and Welsh</a> average. </p>
<p>This lack of board diversity in the charity sector mirrors a <a href="http://frc.org.uk/news/december-2017/a-sharper-uk-corporate-governance-code-to-achieve">similar debate</a> on governance in the private sector.</p>
<p><iframe id="ajKVL" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ajKVL/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Questions of recruitment</h2>
<p>Trustees are volunteers, and the ways that volunteers <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/NCVO/trends-in-volunteering?_cldee=bi5qLmZsZXRjaGVyQHNodS5hYy51aw%3d%3d&recipientid=contact-da453f9d2d46e411b3e9d89d67649648-c1cb22a985a441afab5f5f235fe8f5a2&utm_source=ClickDimensions&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Webinars&esid=05f9602d-d1d9-e711-812e-e0071b652f51&urlid=7">want to engage</a> is changing. A <a href="https://thirdsector.com.au/what-on-earth-is-happening-to-volunteering/">new breed of volunteer</a> wants to get involved with short-term, <a href="https://www.handsonmaui.com/episodic-volunteering/">episodic</a> projects. They don’t always want to offer a long-term, regular commitment. They also want high-skilled, <a href="https://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/research-publications/stateofvolunteering/">meaningful work</a> and they don’t want to volunteer by engaging in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-environmental-groups-need-more-volunteers-of-color-75370">unrewarding tasks</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also important to consider what happens inside an
<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/corg.12006/references;jsessionid=ACC938783DB2140F7B9AC26DF915F828.f03t03?globalMessage=0">effective board</a> and there are lessons to be learnt from business here. Effective board governance occurs when the dynamics of both <a href="http://amr.aom.org/content/28/3/397.abstract">control and collaboration</a> are combined appropriately. This means that part of a trustee’s job is to do with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/617828/CC3.pdf">control and compliance</a> issues. The more glamorous part is working collaboratively as a board to lead the organisation forward in a <a href="https://www.cranfieldtrust.org/resources-for-charities">strategic manner</a>. The <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/307347426/Beyond-Agency-Conceptions-of-the-Work-of-the-Non-Executive-Director">skill</a> of being able to manage both of these forms of governance must not be underestimated. </p>
<p>The Charity Commission report finds that many boards are skillful at the traditional forms of governance, for example monitoring financial performance. They also feel confident to oversee and guide what the organisation does, ensuring that its charitable purposes are met. Yet a significant proportion of charity boards feel that they lack marketing, campaigning, fundraising and digital skills. The report also finds that boards, especially those of smaller organisations, tend to recruit trustees informally through their established networks. But relying on these traditional forms of recruitment is one of the reasons why charity boards are not as diverse as they could be.</p>
<h2>A pipeline</h2>
<p>An obvious way to enhance trustee diversity appears to be recruiting younger trustees – with the specific skills that boards tend to lack – using new or modified recruitment networks or methods. </p>
<p>But attempting to recruit younger people to serve immediately on a charity board might be a step too far for some would-be trustees. This is because it takes time to gain all the skills required to be an accomplished trustee. Instead, charities should think about developing a pipeline of younger people who are being prepared for trusteeship. </p>
<p>Boards need to consider how younger people can become more involved in episodic projects: without the need for them to take on the onerous control and compliance tasks associated with traditional governance. For example, inviting a young press officer to write compelling, strategic, press releases for a small, under-resourced, charity. This would require working alongside a board at a strategic level, but would not necessarily mean having to join a board immediately.
Opportunities like this could encourage full trusteeship participation at a later date. </p>
<p>Larger charities could also set up <a href="http://www.theinspiringleadersnetwork.co.uk/programmes/shadow-board/">shadow boards</a> to fast track younger people to learn the skills of governance earlier in their careers.
A shadow board does not make people secret trustees. Instead, it gives less experienced people an opportunity to follow, or shadow, the governance of an organisation, in an accessible manner. </p>
<p>But a word of warning. Simply recruiting a person to a board because they possess a particular skill, or represent a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a81d9f3e-954d-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582">particular group of people</a>, does not guarantee improved governance. Our personal experience, and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a81d9f3e-954d-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582">other observations</a>, suggest that it can be very challenging for inexperienced, but well-intentioned people, to contribute effectively to a board. This is why a national campaign needs to encourage charities to prepare younger people to become trustees, before they take up board positions in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Fletcher is a trustee of Home-Start (South Yorkshire).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Mack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A typical charity trustee is white, male and around 60-years-old.Neil Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Corporate Governance and Ethics, Sheffield Hallam UniversityJanet Mack, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670352016-10-21T01:45:35Z2016-10-21T01:45:35ZCorporate America’s old boys’ club is dead – and that’s why Big Business couldn’t stop Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142592/original/image-20161021-8852-1nt8hqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do they still rule the world? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corporate board via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If corporate money controls our politics, as <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/271584-corporate-influence-on-politics-is-what-all-the-candidates-are">Bernie Sanders</a> and others have claimed, then how did the Republican Party – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-trade-is-once-again-tearing-apart-the-republican-party-57698">reputed</a> party of business – manage to nominate a candidate whom almost no one in Big Business supports? And why have so many been <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/06/major-corporate-sponsors-are-scaling-back-support-for-gop-convention.html">so silent</a> about it? </p>
<p>A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-fortune-100-ceos-back-republican-donald-trump-1474671842">not one CEO</a> at a Fortune 100 company has donated to Trump’s campaign, whereas one-third supported Mitt Romney in 2012. Many in business have said privately that they are terrified of a Trump administration and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/business/dealbook/trumps-a-businessman-wheres-his-business-backing.html?_r=0">possibility of trade wars and ballooning deficits</a>, yet few CEOs vocally oppose him. </p>
<p>So why isn’t a CEO social movement taking to the barricades against a Trump presidency? One possibility: To mobilize a movement, you need a social network, and CEOs no longer have one. </p>
<p>In other words, corporate America’s “old boys’ club” is dead. The question is: Is that entirely a good thing? As our research – and Trump’s rise – shows, not necessarily.</p>
<h2>Building the old boys’ club</h2>
<p>For <a href="http://soq.sagepub.com/content/1/3/301.short">most of the postwar era</a>, American corporations were overseen by a group of elite executives and directors who all knew each other or had friends in common. In 1974, <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2061113">there were roughly 100 people</a> (all male and all but one white) who each served on five or more corporate boards. </p>
<p>Corporate America was controlled by an “old boys’ club.”</p>
<p><a href="http://soq.sagepub.com/content/1/3/301.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc">Social network analysis</a> shows that the board members of any two corporations were rarely more than three or four degrees of separation apart. A sneeze in one boardroom could have triggered a flu epidemic infecting more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 within a few months.</p>
<p>Louis Brandeis, who served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939, warned about this concentration of power in his 1914 book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Money-How-Bankers/dp/1438285264">Other People’s Money: And How the Bankers Use It</a>.” To him, the network among corporate directors was an “endless chain” that served as the “most potent instrument of the Money Trust.” </p>
<p>In the 1950s, sociologist C. Wright Mills <a href="http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Essays/Mills2.htm">labeled</a> this group the “power elite,” interweaving business, government and the military, and subsequent researchers <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.271">documented</a> how pervasive these ties were.</p>
<h2>The heyday of corporate influence</h2>
<p>President George W. Bush’s first cabinet may have been the <a href="http://jmi.sagepub.com/content/early/2008/05/06/1056492608316918">high-water mark</a> of the corporate network’s influence. </p>
<p>A few highlights: Before he became vice president, Dick Cheney served on the boards of Electronic Data Systems, Procter & Gamble and Union Pacific. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had previously been CEO of GD Searle and General Instrument and served on the boards of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences and Tribune Co. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was CEO of Alcoa and director of Eastman Kodak and Lucent Technologies. And Labor Secretary Elaine Chao was on the boards of CR Bard, Clorox, Dole, HCA Healthcare, Marine Transport, Millipore, Northwest Airlines, Protective Life and Raymond James Financial.</p>
<p>In all, the Bush cabinet was directly tied to 21 corporations, two degrees from another 228 and three degrees of separation from over 1,100 companies listed on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. No <a href="http://jmi.sagepub.com/content/early/2008/05/06/1056492608316918">administration in history</a> had as many direct personal contacts with corporate America.</p>
<p>Such network ties have a tangible effect on corporate actions. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8683.1996.tb00144.x/full">Scholars found</a> that ideas about how to run a corporation spread from board to board through shared directors, just as fads and fashions spread through contact among people. Moreover, a number of studies showed that these connections shaped how corporations and their executives engaged in politics. For example, executives at companies linked together by shared directors <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674843776">tended to donate</a> to the same political candidates. </p>
<p>At the center of this network reigned a small, linked group of powerful executives – Wharton Business School professor Michael Useem <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Circle-Corporations-Business-Political/dp/0195040333">dubbed them</a> the “inner circle” – who came to share a common viewpoint about what was best for the long-term interests of American business as a whole. Serving on many boards, particularly big bank boards (which were bigger and often filled with well-connected CEOs), <a href="http://asq.sagepub.com/content/44/2/215.abstract%5D">gave this group</a> an expansive view of what was best for all of business and not just particular companies and industries. As <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-congressional-board-pay/">Useem’s work showed</a>, this group tended to be prominent in both business and civic life, often including corporate executives, leaders of nonprofit and cultural institutions and former government officials. </p>
<p>Being in regular contact with each other made concerted action possible, which helped them achieve their own aims but could also have positive societal benefits, such as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2008.00785.x/abstract">organizing a successful Olympics bid</a>. It also gave the group the potential to influence government policy – for better or worse. </p>
<h2>The demise of the power elite</h2>
<p>This world of cozy, highly connected boards is now gone. </p>
<p>The JP Morgan Chase board in 2001 had 15 directors, and all but two of them served on other boards. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/us/william-h-gray-iii-pastor-and-lawmaker-dies-at-71.html">One director</a> served on eight boards including the bank itself, five held five seats each, and another five were on three or four. </p>
<p>Today, the bank’s <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/board-of-directors.htm">board consists of a dozen directors</a>, half of them retirees from prior corporate jobs. <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/ab-board-bio-jamesabell.htm">One serves on four boards</a>, <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/ab-board-bio-williamcweldon.htm">another serves on three</a>. The rest are on just one or two. </p>
<p>For the corporate network as a whole, by 2012, only one director sat on five major boards (compared with about 100 who sat on that many or more in 1974). </p>
<p>So what killed the inner circle? The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Managed-Markets-Finance-Re-Shaped-America/dp/0199691924/">corporate scandals</a> of the early 2000s and the <a href="http://www.soxlaw.com">Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002</a> were the precipitating factors. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2061113">our research</a> shows, before these events, serving on many boards was a source of prestige, and the largest corporations courted well-connected directors. But after the scandals, being a well-connected director became suspect. </p>
<p>For example, in 2002, Forbes published an article <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2002/08/06/0806directors.html">that profiled</a> the five directors with the most S&P 500 board seats, asserting that they were too overstretched to provide adequate oversight. In 2004, Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises large institutional investors on corporate governance, <a href="http://www.kattenlaw.com/files/20195_ISS%20Updates%20Proxy%20Voting%20Policies%20Effective%20Feb%201.pdf">began recommending</a> that its clients vote against directors who served on too many boards. </p>
<p>Within a few years, the inner circle had disintegrated.</p>
<h2>From group think to kingmakers</h2>
<p>Did the demise of the inner circle stop the 1 percent from dictating policy? Well, not exactly. </p>
<p>Each individual in the corporate elite still wields considerable influence. But as sociologist Mark Mizruchi <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fracturing-American-Corporate-Elite/dp/0674072995">has pointed out</a>, they now tend to do so as individuals pursuing their own idiosyncratic agendas rather than as a group. Think <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/09/20/donald-trump-donation/">Sheldon Adelson</a> or the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/koch-brothers-network-focusing-gop-senate-trump-42851965">Koch Brothers</a> rather than the <a href="http://businessroundtable.org">Business Roundtable</a>. </p>
<p>This has not been altogether a good thing.</p>
<p>When a single network connected corporate America, executives were forced to listen to opinions from a range of peers. And although the group skewed Republican on average, individual directors held a range of political opinions.</p>
<p>The most well-connected leaders converged on a preference for more moderate candidates and policies and often ended up donating to both parties’ candidates, <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/428817">not just one</a>. The support of this group was useful, if not absolutely essential, for potential presidential candidates, and it is hard to imagine that a putative anti-establishment candidate like Trump would have passed muster. </p>
<p>The dense web of connections allowed the inner circle to police the corporate ranks and present a unified, middle-of-the-road message to policymakers. <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2061113">Our own research</a>, forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology, finds that board ties are now too sparse to provide a means for business executives to forge common ground.</p>
<p>CEOs today rarely serve on two or more boards, and, as a result, they no longer have monthly opportunities to hear what peers who support another point of view might think. Those board connections turned out to be a force for political moderation, and <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2016/">annual gatherings in Davos</a> are not enough to replace them.</p>
<p>American politics has arrived at a millennial inflection point. While Mills and his fellow critics lambasted the well-connected corporate inner circle for furthering their own interests over those of the majority of society, we now see that the alternative may be dysfunction and an inability to find common ground. </p>
<p>Extremists in every corner of the political universe can gather power by targeting well-heeled funders like Adelson on the right and George Soros on the left. In this new world, compromise is frowned upon. </p>
<p>While we don’t want to return to a world where a handful of powerful white men held rule over corporate America and by extension the nation, we may benefit from building structures that operate like board ties previously did, acting as a force for compromise and moderation. </p>
<p>To hold together, American society may require new institutions that connect a broad and diverse spectrum of business and nonprofit leaders to each other, forcing individuals to consider the views of their peers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerry Davis has contributed to Hillary Clinton's campaign.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johan Chu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While few would bemoan its end, the club fostered strong ties among the titans of Corporate America and ensured moderate candidates and policies. Its death has led to more extremism.Johan Chu, Assistant Professor of Organizations and Strategy, University of ChicagoJerry Davis, Professor of Management and Sociology, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659712016-09-27T14:39:51Z2016-09-27T14:39:51ZCan quotas make gender equality happen in politics? Lessons from business<p>The number of women MPs in the British parliament is the highest it’s ever been. There are 191 women among the 650 MPs, <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN01250">up a third from the 2010 election</a>. This has to be good news, especially for the many critics of national politics who complain that too many politicians are white male graduates of one or two English universities. </p>
<p>And, of course, the UK has a second woman living in 10 Downing Street as prime minister. So things are changing for the better, aren’t they? Politics is becoming a more progressive profession, isn’t it? And the British electorate is more accepting of women making laws and developing policy, no? </p>
<p>Possibly. It’s easy to overlook the startling fact there are more men currently sitting as MPs in this parliament than the total number of women elected to serve since 1918. This shows that there is a long history to consider when we think about equality and discrimination in professions and organisations – a legacy that will take a long time to fade. Change is happening. But it is slow, and it is tempting to assume that all is well because there is some progress made on the numbers. Politics has a few lessons to learn from business on this front.</p>
<h2>A long legacy</h2>
<p>Beyond the numbers, the culture of work environments is incredibly important for addressing gender inequalities. Academics working in Sweden, often put forward in media and popular culture as the place where gender equality is most advanced, tell us that simply “body counting” the number of women doesn’t mean that equality has been achieved. Cultural change <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43509371_Beyond_body-counting_A_discussion_of_the_social_construction_of_gender">takes a lot longer</a>, if it can be achieved at all. It’s easy to underestimate how resilient organisational cultures are in the face of attempts to manage or change them, especially in the longest lived such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/oxfords-first-female-vice-chancellor-wont-end-gender-inequality-on-her-own-42567">universities</a> or parliaments. </p>
<p>The progressive change we see in the number of women working as MPs is largely due to the implementation of quotas. Danish academic <a href="https://drudedahlerup.com/">Drude Dahlerup</a> has been tracking the introduction of quotas in parliaments around the world for many years. Her research is as clear as can be in its conclusions – significant change <a href="http://www.quotaproject.org/">doesn’t happen without quotas</a> and, even then, progress in increasing women’s representation can be rolled back quickly. </p>
<p>The same is seen in conventional workplaces. British business leaders have long resisted the imposition of quotas for executive boards, despite overseeing one of the world’s most dismal records in promoting the many competent women working at lower levels. Recent government threats to introduce quotas provoked some change, <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-women-on-ftse-100-boards-but-still-not-enough-33854">but in a limited way</a> – women tend to be appointed to relatively low status, less powerful non-executive positions. This gives the semblance of gender parity, but business <a href="http://www.wearethecity.com/linchpin-men-middle-managers-and-gender-inclusive-leadership-elisabeth-kelan-professor-of-leadership-cranfield-university/">continues as usual in the background</a>.</p>
<p>There are strong signs that the same dynamics apply in politics. Although it is the Conservatives that have elected two women leaders, the Labour Party has made a greater effort at boosting its number of women MPs, <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05057.pdf">using all-women shortlists since 1995</a>. Initiatives that rely on voluntary action to improve gender equality have a limited effect. The Conservatives, for example, count just 68 women MPs out of the current cohort’s 329. Only enforced quotas achieve the kind of rapid numerical change we need in the 21st century. </p>
<h2>Changing culture</h2>
<p>But still, all the organisational research tells us very clearly that deep-rooted patterns of “how things are done around here” are key to whether a workplace is hostile or welcoming to people who don’t fit the white male norm. And underlying an organisation’s culture is its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43509371_Beyond_body-counting_A_discussion_of_the_social_construction_of_gender">sense of identity</a>. In political parties, identity is important in terms of ethical priorities and what kind of person is envisaged as a valid leader. Early analysis of a data we’ve collected using interviews on Labour’s use of all-women shortlists points towards some optimistic but also some depressing conclusions.</p>
<p>The positive: gender equality advocates have won a series of pitched battles to get all-women selections for the safest parliamentary seats. These have sometimes been bitter, with an early setback in the Welsh seat of Blaenau Gwent which Labour lost <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/battle-lines-drawn-blaenau-gwent-2094740">following the decision to run an all-women list</a>. But party staff are becoming far more skilled at managing the selection and implementation of all-women shortlists. Proponents of all-women shortlists have also succeeded at convincing party members that the commitment to “equality” and “democracy” should extend to gender equality and opening access to the democratic process for all. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What most MPs look like.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/PA Wire</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a more negative sense, our interviews suggest that the culture of the profession has not progressed as much as it could. While we heard that parties in more affluent, metropolitan constituencies were now more likely to select a woman candidate or accept an all-women shortlist without too many grumbles, the picture remains quite bleak in other areas, including Westminster. </p>
<p>We heard tales of highly competent and successful MPs, women who had held their seats for more than a decade, still facing down misogynist attitudes and comments from local members and parliamentary colleagues. We also heard concerns from party staff that all-women shortlists might, in the short-term, have re-enforced patriarchy by creating a segregated system where men nearly always win open selections. The embedded picture of an MP as <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/simply-stroking-her-arm?utm_term=.lixwbVoxE#.ojjv08YVw">a white middle-aged man</a> is a difficult professional identity to disrupt.</p>
<p>Politics as a profession is notorious for permitting <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13211577">and even celebrating macho behaviour</a>. This excludes not just women but also anyone who isn’t willing to conform. Reproducing a destructive and exclusive culture is something that the Labour Party, despite its great success in rebalancing the numbers in terms of women MPs, has been criticised for this year. And a number of women Labour MPs <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36864903">have complained of bullying and harassment</a>, particularly online. </p>
<p>Cultural change is slow, difficult, and dependent on everyone’s commitment in practice, not just rhetoric. Actually seeing successful women in the UK’s elected parliaments and assemblies is important, but embedding gender equality as something normal will involve a much longer and deeper process of engagement with identity and ethical practice in organisation and individual behaviour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are quotas the best way to challenge sexism and discrimination in politics and workplaces?Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership and Organisation Studies, University of BirminghamOwain Smolović Jones, Lecturer in Organisation Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.