Plastic Women and Cardboard Men: Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards

• In Event: Women Leaders in Context: Women Business Leaders and Female Executives on Corporate Boards

Short Description

This paper reviewed the role senior women leaders play on corporate boards of directors. The presenter will share a theoretical model that links gender diversity to female directors' adaptability, behavioral cognitive complexity, political savvy, and their ability to build network ties. Propositions to test the model will be offered.

Detailed Abstract

In the current business climate, gender diversity is a global problem and the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards of directors (BODs) has stimulated a lively debate in both the scholarly literature and the poplar press. Companies that fail to diversify their boards come under scrutiny by stakeholders and the media that hold them accountable for gender inequity in the boardroom. Compelling arguments suggest BODs need the human capital of senior executive women to support firms in solving complex business challenges. However, boards have not selected women to serve relative to and leadership competencies.
The purpose of this paper to articulate a conceptual model that identifies four antecedents representing individual characteristics of prospective female directors as critical attributes when new female directors are selected to serve on existing BODs. More specifically, the proposed model is comprised of four individual characteristics of female directors- adaptability, behavioral/cognitive complexity, political savvy, and the ability to build network ties as predictors of new BOD appointments. Figure 1 depicts the proposed structural model and the following section provides a description of the model parameters.

Model Parameters

Women Directors' Adaptability
Zaccaro's (2001) Executive Flexibility (EF) Model provides the theoretical underpinning for this model parameter. A female director's adaptability is comprised of a number of facets including social and cognitive flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity and dispositional openness. Cognitive flexibility and other metacognitive skills such as tolerance for ambiguity, optimism and social intelligence contribute to the leader's ability to think adaptively by helping them understand problems and their boundaries, promoting the search for effective solutions, and ensuring that they monitor the effectiveness of solutions, once they have been implemented.

Proposition 1: A woman director's adaptability is positively related to the probability of securing a new BOD appointment

Women Directors’ Behavioral/Cognitive Complexity
Complexity Leadership Theory treats BODs as complex adaptive systems in knowledge-producing organizations. This paradigm focuses on learning, creativity, and innovation with leaders pushing their organization into a degree of chaos by creating uncertainty and ambiguity. Marion and Uhl-Bien (2001) argued that leaders need to think broadly in terms of systems, nonlinear effects, and network forces. They go on to say that leaders need to understand the patterns of complexity and learn to manipulate situations of complexity more than their results.

Proposition 2: A woman director's behavioral/cognitive complexity is positively
related to the probability of securing a new BOD appointment

Women Directors’ Political Savvy
Women leaders' political savvy is equally central to the functioning and effectiveness CBODs. Most strategic decision processes are ultimately political in that they involve decisions with uncertain outcomes, actors with conflicting views and resolutions brought about through exercise of power. Political savvy is often called the behind-the-scenes dimension of power. Effective female directors exhibit well-honed political skills, namely those of persuasion, manipulation, negotiation, and so on, without which they would not have made it to the top.
Women who use political savvy and tactics to secure a seat on a CBOD are often ostracized by their peers and constantly attract media attention. In its extreme form, political savvy sometimes allows for the most blatant display of raw power from which many female executives shy away. Among other issues, political savvy allows female directors to effectively manage attributions of intentionality and to disguise self-serving opportunistic motives.

Proposition 3: A woman director's political savvy is positively related to the probability of securing a new BOD appointment

Building Network Ties
Developing network ties is a key strategy in distributed knowledge teams such as BODs. Although communication and information technologies can provide a powerful platform to facilitate the process, it is network relationships that serve as the actual bonds that help people overcome geographic constraints. Research has shown that network ties can provide not only instrumental or task-oriented resource exchange but also expressive emotional support. Because of women's greater propensity to share power and information, greater representation of women on CBODs can facilitate the dissemination of information by weakening barriers to effective social discourse and lowering the likelihood of subgroup formation. Women are known for their networking capabilities and strategies and they are likely to seek ties with others both inside and outside the organization. As a corporate director, building network ties across stakeholders within and outside the firm is an important skill for corporate directors.

Proposition 4: A woman director's ability to build network ties within and outside the organization is positively related to the probability of securing a new BOD appointment

Summary
Although the number of women on BODs has increased significantly over the past decades, the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards remains a heavily contested topic despite the fact that numerous studies have shown that a higher percentage of women on BODs is associated with higher firm performance, more ethical behaviors, more frequent board meetings and greater participatory decision making. In this paper, I developed a conceptual model that postulates that new appointments of female directors are determined by the current composition of the BOD, prospective candidates' adaptability, behavioral/cognitive complexity, political savvy, and their ability to build network ties within and across organizations. The model lends itself to quantitative hypothesis testing since reliable and valid measures of all constructs exists as well as qualitative research to investigate research questions derive from the model.

Participant

• Karin Klenke, Leadership Development Institute (LDI) International