Gender diversity in different countries
The common topic about gender diversity in boardrooms has been raising awareness all over the world. Main research has been done in the US, but lately more and more researches looked into this topic for Asian and European countries. This was due to the fact that a US study cannot be representative for the entire world. Every country has its own ethics and differences in culture, which can lead to different outcomes when it comes to the issue of gender diversity. For this literature review, I have used existing research for a few geographic areas, like Asia, Europe and the US. In this day of age, very few top management functions are fulfilled by women. This proportion was 14.8% of the fortune 500 firms
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(Smith, Smith, & Verner, 2005). Nina Smith concludes her research by concluding that there is a positive relationship between gender diversity and firm performance. To come to this conclusion, various tests were conducted between gender on boards of the companies in the research and the financial performance of these companies. To analyze this relationship, four measures were used, in particular, Gross value added, profit on ordinary operations/ net turnover, ordinary results/ net assets and net result after tax/ net assets. These results show there is a positive relationship between gender and firm performance, but a side note that should be made is that the women should have a high education, since women without a university degree tend to have less impact on firm performance. Carter, Simpkins and Simpson were also one of the first researchers to find a positive relationship between gender diversity and firm performance for the fortune 1000 firms (Carter, Simkins, & Simpson, 2003). They used older conducted research to form a base for their research, which had mixed outcomes. Some researchers conclude a positive relationship, …show more content…
But they did notice that this proportion decreases when a firm gets more insiders in their board (Carter, Simkins, & Simpson, 2003). After these researchers, in the years following, a lot of research was done regarding gender diversity. Despite the fact that earlier research mentioned a positive effect on firm performance, gender diversity still is very low in many countries. Campbell and Mínguez- Vera did their part in the research to gender diversity in 2007. They also used Tobin’s Q as a measuring- unit, to conduct research to the link between gender diversity and firm performance in Spain. Compared to the US, the proportion of woman in top management function is relatively low. Due to pressure from the government, companies have been appointing women on their board; however it isn’t specifically the presence on women which leads to a better, but a gender diverse board consisting of both men and women with a high level of education can lead to better firm performance (Campbell & Mínguez-Vera, 2008). Anderson, Reeb, Upadhyay and Zhao recently did research on this topic, which was published in the journal of financial management. They used the Russel