Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity
Corporate Law, Governance, and Diversity

This book uses interviews with corporate board directors in Norway and analysis of US corporate securities filings to investigate quotas and disclosure in hiring practices.

Aaron A. Dhir (Author)

9781316612828, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 June 2016

330 pages, 14 b/w illus. 9 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.8 cm, 0.5 kg

'One does not have to be an expert in corporate governance to be aware of the all-too-common lack of gender parity that exists in corporate leadership … Also not surprising is the fact that policymakers have long wrestled with this issue - both in terms of possible solutions and why it continues to persist. In Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity, Professor Aaron Dhir takes an empirical approach to this inquiry and examines two different regulatory models aimed at addressing this issue - the Norwegian 'quota' model and the American 'disclosure' model …Through his analysis, Dhir demonstrates the profound effects that legal regimes can have on boardroom gender dynamics and the amount of work that remains to be done.' The Harvard Law Review

The lack of gender parity in the governance of business corporations has ignited a heated global debate, leading policymakers to wrestle with difficult questions that lie at the intersection of market activity and social identity politics. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with corporate board directors in Norway and documentary content analysis of corporate securities filings in the United States, Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity empirically investigates two distinct regulatory models designed to address diversity in the boardroom: quotas and disclosure. The author's study of the Norwegian quota model demonstrates the important role diversity can play in enhancing the quality of corporate governance, while also revealing the challenges diversity mandates pose. His analysis of the US regime shows how a disclosure model has led corporations to establish a vocabulary of 'diversity'. At the same time, the analysis highlights the downsides of affording firms too much discretion in defining that concept. This book deepens ongoing policy conversations and offers new insights into the role law can play in reshaping the gendered dynamics of corporate governance cultures.

1. Introduction: homogeneous corporate governance cultures
2. Laying a foundation: why the board, why the statistics, and why diversification?
3. Enter legal regulation: quota and disclosure-based approaches
4. Norway's socio-legal journey: a qualitative study of boardroom diversity quotas
5. Lessons from Norway: successes and limitations of the quota model
6. Proxy disclosures under the US rule: a mixed-methods content analysis
7. Contextualizing the content analysis results: norms, expressive law, and reform possibilities
8. Conclusions: ongoing inquiry into quotas and disclosure regimes as regulatory models.

Subject Areas: Company, commercial & competition law [LNC], Law [L], Corporate governance [KJR]