‘Glacial at Best’: Women’s Progress on Corporate Boards in Australia

Women Directors on Corporate Boards: A Review and Research Agenda

“…A consistent finding is that women directors are significantly younger than their male counterparts, with comparisons in the range of 53 years for the UK's FTSE 100 female directors, compared to 56 for males (Sealy, Singh, and Vinnicombe, 2007). Australian statistics are similar; women's average age is 53 and men's is 61 (Ross-Smith and Bridge, 2008). Peterson and Philpot's (2007) US Fortune 500 study reports women and men's average ages to be 56 and 60 respectively.…”

“…Private versus Public Initiatives. In Australia, there is no formal requirement for private or listed companies to consider board diversity, in contrast to the government sector, which has 30 years of public policies to ensure boards are diverse or reflect the broader community (Ross-Smith and Bridge, 2008). Similarly in New Zealand, a microcosm of Western business, with only 1600 companies with more than 100 employees, women hold just 7 per cent of board directorships, and 63 of the top 100 companies have no WOCBs (MacGregor and Fontaine, 2006).…”

“…A second promising area, also outlined by Ross‐Smith and Bridge (2008) and Zelechowski and Bilimoria (2004), is the elaboration of director profiles including career paths and networks. Such in‐depth investigations, traditionally facilitated by archive data, could benefit from interviews and the utilization of life history calendars that take into account portfolio career perspectives (see Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin and Young‐DeMarco, 1988 for an overview of methodology).…”

Women on Boards: Do They Affect Sustainability Reporting?

“…() assess that the evolution of entrepreneurial women power has evolved glacially slow. It seems that soft legislation is not enough (Joy, ; Ross‐Smith and Bridge, ; Shilton et al ., ). Only in countries that legislate compulsory women quotas (e.g.…”

A women’s boom in the boardroom: effects on performance?

“…Female directors on average are more educated and attend different schools than their male peers (Singh et al, 2008). Female administrators also are younger (Ross-Smith and Bridge, 2008;Sealy et al, 2007) and have more international experience but less executive experience before their appointment (Zelechowski and Bilimoria, 2004). They come from the private sector but, unlike male directors, also may have worked in nonprofit organizations or the public sector, such as universities or research departments (Sealy et al, 2007;Singh et al, 2008).…”