Antecedents of top management team and board gender diversity: A review and an agenda for research

Abstract

Research Question/Issue The paper aims to understand the factors hindering and facilitating women's access to top management teams (TMTs) and boards of directors. It provides a systematic review of extant scholarly work on the antecedents of TMT and board gender diversity. Research Findings/Insights Reviewing and integrating research from over 200 journal publications, I develop an integrative review of the antecedents of gender diversity for two types of research contexts—TMT and board—at three levels: person centered, situation centered, and social‐system centered. I also identify knowledge gaps and suggest areas for future research. Theoretical/Academic Implications This comprehensive review of extant research simultaneously considers antecedents of TMT gender diversity and board gender diversity, providing insights into divergent trends of TMT and board gender diversity while highlighting understudied areas. Hopefully, the review will inspire more research to advance knowledge of the antecedents of TMT and board gender diversity, areas that have received relatively little attention compared with extensive research on the consequences of gender diversity. Practitioner/Policy Implications Gender diversity in corporate leadership is a topic of great interest. The growth in board gender diversity is unprecedented, but growth in TMT gender diversity has been stagnant. I offer a synthesis of extant literature to understand the social, situational, and individual drivers of TMT and board gender diversity, providing valuable insights for policymakers, investors, executives, and directors who seek to improve corporate leadership gender diversity.

Recent Evidence and Insights on Corporate Governance From Around the Globe

“…Issue 1 includes also a focused issue of five review articles. They deal with a broad range of intriguing subjects such as mapping the corporate governance scholarship (Pandey, Andres, and Kumar 2023), remuneration reforms in the banking sector (Zalewska 2023), synthesizing the board-strategy relationship (Bezemer et al 2023), and sustainable corporate governance (Kavadis and Thomsen 2023) as well as antecedents of top management team and board gender diversity (Yao 2023).…”