3D: Studies

Studies

Below are some studies on board diversity and its impact on company performance:

All links on this page go to other websites.

• 2012 Women on Boards Report
  GMI Ratings

  Data survey of over 4,300 international firms' board demographics. Provides context for the discussion and country-specific market developments, as well as highlighting other statistics for countries in industrialized and emerging markets and industry sectors, including those with the highest and lowest proportion of women on boards.

• Financial Services: enhancing the role of and prospects for women in the GCC
  HRinspireME and Insight Discovery in partnership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants England & Wales, Latham & Watkins LLP and Standard Chartered Bank.

  A summary from the Leadership Roundtable, Women in Finance Across the GCC which included a group of senior executives from the financial and professional services industries who met to discuss how more women can be encouraged to take up a career in the financial services sector and how, over time, more women can be brought onto the boards of financial institutions.

• A Seat at the Table
  Jilaine Hummel Bauer

  Changing economic conditions are expanding companies' recruitment strategies. This article explores how women should develop and act on a plan to make them stronger board candidates.

• Outstanding in their Field: How Women Corporate Directors Succeed
  Elizabeth Ghaffari

  This book includes an interview with 15 women about how they achieved their directorship positions at top Fortune 1000 company boards.

• How Change Happens
  The InterOrganizationNetwork (ION)

  This report benchmarks and tracks women directors and executive officers of public companies based on 14 US regions. Also focuses on several institutional investors who have taken a leadership role in promoting diversity.

• Critical Mass on Corporate Boards: Why Three or More Women Enhance Governance
  Vicki W. Kramer, Alison M. Konrad, Sumru Erkut, Michele J. Hooper

  This report investigates the "critical mass" needed for a board to benefit from gender diversity.

• Beyond the Boilerplate: The Performance Impacts of Board Diversity
  Kimberly Gladman, Director of Research and Risk Analytics, GMI

  A distillation of academic research and public company filing disclosures that highlights the differences between the two in their understandings of the function of board diversity. Although academic analysis has shown diversity makes boards more efficient overseers and more realistic judges of value, corporations appear to view board diversity as a moral, political or social justice issue.

• Women in the boardroom: Global Perspective
  Deloitte

  This report examines the pursuit of gender parity in boardrooms around the world and provides an overview of legal and regulatory initiatives underway in 12 countries.

• Beyond Optics: Why Board Diversity Really Matters
  Lucy P. Marcus, CEO, Marcus Venture Consulting

  An opinion piece stressing that “businesses ledby diverse boards that reflect the whole breadth of their stakeholders and their business environment will be more successful businesses” since they will benefit from a more expansive and deeper pool of knowledge and experience. The piece addresses board cohesion versus “dynamic discussion” and speaks to various types of diversity including age, color andr, international perspective.

• Diversity: ‘An Economic Imperative’
  Erika Karp, Managing Director, Head of Global Sector Research, UBS Investment Bank

  Blog post addressing diversity as essential in redefining the measures of successful collaboration, namely to prevent using metrics such as those used in the “often monolithic power structure of the financial services industry” which can “distort the true objectives” of an organization.

• Measuring the Impact of Board Composition on Company Performance: The Eversheds Board Report
  Eversheds LLP

  An examination of the board composition and share price performance of 241 leading global companies between January 2007 and December 2009 with a view toward determine how a board’s “size and shape” impacted its company’s performance during the financial crisis. Also includes subjective analysis from 50 director interviews conducted at the same companies reflection their opinions about the board’s role in company effectiveness.

• Diversity on Corporate Boards: How Much Difference Does Difference Make?
  Deborah L. Rhode and Amanda K. Packel, Rock Center for Corporate Governance

  An analysis of recent studies on board diversity – specifically ethnic, racial and gender diversity – that concludes that the relationship between board diversity and financial performance has not been convincingly established but that there is some basis for it improving decision-making and enhancing a company’s public image if the diversity extends beyond tokenism.

• Boardroom Diversity Means Better Business an Liftstream interview with
  Lucy P. Marcus, CEO, Marcus Venture Consulting

  An interview with Lucy P. Marcus, CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting Ltd., a company committed to fostering sustainable business. Discusses the benefits of more women in the boardroom as well as far more diverse representation in general. She believes improving diversity is about “forcing organisations to look outside of the usual suspects and to think more broadly about who should be on boards…. It is about doing what is right for business: selecting from a wider, more diverse, pool of talent.”