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The Corporate Board Glass Ceiling: The Role of Empowerment and Culture in Shaping Board Gender Diversity

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Abstract

In this study, we use a mixed methods research design to investigate how national cultural forces may impede or enhance the positive impact of females’ economic and political empowerment on increasing gender diversity of corporate boards. Using both a longitudinal correlation-based methodology and a configurational approach with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we integrate theoretical mechanisms from gender schema and institutional theories to develop a mid-range theory about how female empowerment and national culture shape gender diversity on corporate boards around the world. With our configurational approach, we conceptually and empirically model the complexity that is associated with the simultaneous interdependencies, both complementary and substitutive ones, between female empowerment processes and various cultural dimensions. Our findings contribute unique insights to research focused on board gender diversity as well as provide information for firm decision makers and policymakers about possible solutions for addressing the continuing issue of the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards.

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Notes

  1. For the sources of the various values please see the Global Gender Gap Reports 2014 (p. 4).

  2. This measure is labeled as “economic opportunity and participation” in the Global Gender Gap Reports.

  3. We also considered using the GLOBE dimensions of power distance and gender egalitarianism, but data were only available for 37 of the countries in our sample. We did perform the analysis with the reduced sample using the GLOBE measures and found qualitatively similar results. The regression models showed the effects to have lower statistical significance. The fsQCA identified similar configurations with most changes related to conditions becoming either/or as opposed to definitely present or absent.

  4. Running the analysis without the counterfactuals gave the same patterns of configurations.

  5. With fsQCA each additional causal condition k, leads to an exponential increase in the number of possible combinations (2k).

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge helpful comments from participants at the 2017 International Corporate Governance Society Conference, where an earlier version of this paper was presented.

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  1. Florida Southern College, Lake Hollingsworth Drive, Lakeland, FL, 307-761-1335, USA

    Krista B. Lewellyn

  2. The Pennsylvania State University, York, PA, USA

    Maureen I. Muller-Kahle

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Lewellyn, K.B., Muller-Kahle, M.I. The Corporate Board Glass Ceiling: The Role of Empowerment and Culture in Shaping Board Gender Diversity. J Bus Ethics 165, 329–346 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04116-9

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