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Are Demographic Attributes and Firm Characteristics Drivers of Gender Diversity? Investigating Women’s Positions on French Boards of Directors

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Abstract

In this article, we examine the factors determining the representation of women on boards of directors by considering three main questions. The first question deals with the relationship between characteristics of ownership and governance on one side, and female directorship on the other. The second major question concerns the demographic attributes of women directors, such as nationality, foreign experience, educational level, business expertise, and connections to external sources. The third important question refers to women in senior positions on French boards (e.g., as independent members or board subcommittee members) in relation to firm characteristics and women’s demographic attributes. Our study focuses on French large- and mid-capitalized companies belonging to the SBF120 stock market index during a 5-year period running from 2000 to 2004. First, our results give evidence that the appointment of women directors is strongly related to family ownership and board or firm size. Second, the appointment of women directors is related to their professional services, valuable skills, and network links. Furthermore, we show that women face a double glass-ceiling problem, and note that French firms rely more on the demographic attributes of their women directors when they are appointed to senior board positions. Our study sheds light on issues concerning the law that comes into force in 2016, which imposes quotas of women members on boards of directors in French companies.

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Notes

  1. The number of women directors is expected to rise in France after its parliament approved a law on January 13, 2011, which imposes quotas for the gender balance of company boards. Within the next 3 years, 20% of a firm’s board members must be women, and this percentage should rise to 40 within the following 6 years. This law applies to firms belonging to the CAC 40 stock market index, or those with more than 500 employees, with a revenue exceeding €50 million over the previous 3 years. Sweden has also proposed a legal requirement that 25% of board seats should be taken by female directors, while Norway required 40% female representation by the end of 2008 and Spain requires 40% female representation by the end of 2015.

  2. Virtue ethics refers to relaxing one or more ethical principles to achieve acceptable and workable solutions (Kitchener and Anderson 2011).

  3. The presence of audit committees in French listed firms only became mandatory after the entry into force of the Order of December 8, 2008, which transposes into French law the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union on statutory audits of annual accounts.

  4. In particular, two firms can exhibit the same percentage of women board members while having different numbers of women at board level.

  5. Listed companies must disclose in their annual report the identity of shareholders or concert parties holding more than 5% of the voting rights. The administrative declaration or request for authorization must provide the identity of known major shareholders holding more than 5%. So, for many of our sample firms, only shareholders with at least 5% of capital can be identified.

  6. An alternative approach to modeling count data is the negative binomial regression. Our results are quite similar across the two estimation methods, be it the Poisson regression or the negative binomial regression.

  7. Given the small number of females in our data sample, it is not possible to obtain statistically significant results with regard to the type of operating committees.

  8. The interested reader can find more practical and legal updated information at http://www.grant-thornton.co.uk/thinking/the_boardroom/index.php/governanceregulations_templates/article/pressure_remains_on_companies_to_improve_female_representation_on_boards/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Reims, Reims, France

    Mehdi Nekhili

  2. Rouen Business School, 1, Rue du Maréchal Juin, BP 215, 76130, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France

    Mehdi Nekhili & Hayette Gatfaoui

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  1. Mehdi Nekhili
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Nekhili, M., Gatfaoui, H. Are Demographic Attributes and Firm Characteristics Drivers of Gender Diversity? Investigating Women’s Positions on French Boards of Directors. J Bus Ethics 118, 227–249 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1576-z

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