Presenters to be selected from Call for Papers.
Legislative and regulatory efforts to promote greater ethnic and gender diversity on corporate boards have been launched world-wide in recent years. Gender-parity laws are achieving particular prominence. Italy, the Netherlands, Iceland, Belgium, Australia, India, Norway and the EU have enacted gender-based, pro-diversity laws. The SEC now requires companies to enunciate whether they consider diversity in evaluating board candidates. And in August 2013 the California Senate passed a resolution calling for the state’s companies to have more women on their boards. Mirroring these demands, studies by McKinsey, the Conference Board and Catalyst support the value-added of greater board diversity.
But despite this world-wide enthusiasm for promoting board diversity, there remains tremendous controversy surrounding directors’ roles and functions, as reflects the waning absolutism of shareholder primacy theory.
Hence, questions abound. Will greater diversity lead to unproductive dissension on boards or a loss in wealth-enhancing “experience”? Can demographic disclosure achieve meaningful results or are substantive requirements like quotas warranted? What forms of diversity are most important to achieving corporate and social welfare objectives? Do experiments in enhanced diversity signal evolution in international models of corporate governance? What patterns emerge from the academic studies of boards – and how do they relate to enhanced calls for more diverse board composition?
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.