Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women in Corporate Governance

Stevanović, Maja

Title

Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women in Corporate Governance

Author

Maja Stevanović

Committee member

Marija Kaštelan Mrak (predsjednik povjerenstva)

Committee member

Nenad Vretenar (član povjerenstva)

Defense date and country

2021-06-18, Croatia

Abstract

Corporate governance is a term that covers a vast array of ways and principles through which a corporation is ruled by. Bodies of corporate governance – usually boards of directors – are the ones determining in which way will the corporation operate. They are in charge of making the key decisions that will satisfy their own interests, as well as interests of the corporation stakeholders. Boards of directors are comprised of successful individuals, business experts who enjoy a great deal of... More respect and power through their operating in corporations. But, governance bodies around the world display a worrying level of uniformity and lack of diversity, primarily on a gender basis. Women have been fighting to achieve equality ever since they first got the right to vote merely 101 years ago. Today, they are generally more educated than men and make so much purchasing decisions that they are an absolute key element of today’s consumeristic society. However, judging from the fact that they represent an incredibly small percentage in governance bodies of corporations around the world, it seems like education and economic importance still didn’t grant them the right to participate in decision making in the same amount as men. Experts argue that men predominantly obtain the highest professional rankings because women are prevented to achieve so by the so-called glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a metaphor for a group of different obstacles women face on their professional journey, that makes their career dreams visible but unreachable. Women are conditioned in their attempts to enjoy a successful career by obstacles formed by bias and misinformation deeply embedded into culture. These obstacles primarily include familial obligations – as the critical decade of career development coincides perfectly with the critical decade for women to bear children and form a family. While the world likes to believe it’s as progressive as ever, home-related obligations fall predominantly on women, and oftentimes this dual burden prevents them from progressing further to more challenging, sacrifice seeking professional positions. Different research also shows that men and women don’t have the same workplace experience – as women report experiencing numerous negative situations that result in the workroom not being a female-friendly place. But, why should the world fight for gender equality in corporate governance? For starters, equality is a sign of progressive civilization, and it is both ethical and moral. But, given that profits often mean more than morals in the business world, it should also be noted that many different researches have proven that a correlation exists between larger number of women in corporate governance body and KPI outperformance of the company. Men and women differ in their way of thinking and working, thus more women in governance bodies equal greater diversity of thought – which in the end leads to better performance. Throughout the world, numbers of women operating in governance bodies are small, and their workplace experiences are generally more negative than male experiences. A research conducted between members of governance bodies of companies and institutions in Primorsko-goranska county, showed that there is little variation between characteristics of men and women in governance bodies, but there is quite a significant difference in their views of the gender equality problematics. While women seem to underestimate certain achievements of their gender and tend to perceive the position of women slightly worse than it actually is, men from governance bodies of Primorsko-goranska county tend to do the opposite. They estimate female achievements quite accurately but they perceive the position of women in the society as well as in the business world quite better than it actually is. Both gender have, however, shown an equal amount of misinformation and bias they themselves are probably unaware of, which is in line with findings from other parts of the world. Less

Language

english

Study programme

Title: Business Economics; specializations in: Finance and Banking, Entrepreneurship, Management, Finance and Accounting, Marketing, International Business, IT Business, International Business IT Business
Course: International Business
Study programme type: university
Study level: graduate
Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra ekonomije (magistar/magistra ekonomije)

File origin

Born digital

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