Women on boards of directors

The story is that research has shown that having women on boards of directors helps a company’s profitability. That may be true, but there’s cause to doubt the conclusion because you’re not allowed to say the opposite. Any research that showed that having women on boards hurts a company would be suppressed. It would end careers, the researchers would be labeled as Nazis and driven to suicide, etc. (I’m exaggerating, but only a little.)

IOW, you can’t believe conclusion A if nobody is allowed to contradict it.

But let’s set that aside and assume it’s true, for the sake of argument. Let’s say honest research has clearly demonstrated that companies that have more women on their board of directors outperform companies that do not.

Personally, despite what I say above, I think there might be something to the idea. Women can bring a different perspective, and viewpoint diversity is very important. As a side note, that illustrates the cognitive dissonance on the left, because they want to say “men and women are equal” and also say “adding women to a board of directors makes it better.”

Moving on …. Would such research justify a rule that all companies must have some number of women on their board?

I don’t see how that follows, and I think such a rule contradicts everything we’ve concluded over the years about discrimination. That is, you can’t judge an individual situation on the basis of group characteristics.

Even if we are 100 percent sure that having more of such and so group is correlated with better outcomes, that does not justify a bias in favor of hiring people in that group. This is elementary and basic stuff, but if you need convincing, just run it through your mind a few times with some other groups. Irish, Calvinists, basketball players, former Marines, people who can play the piano. Pick any group you like. Then imagine a hiring situation where a company picks applicants based on their membership in that group.

You can’t do that. It’s insane.

“Oh, sure, Bob is way more qualified than Jack, but Jack can play the piano, and we don’t have enough piano players on the board.”

8 thoughts on “Women on boards of directors”

  1. Let’s say all that nastiness of having some prescribed number of women on a board was eliminated. Yet, despite knowing the potential advantages female board members and having qualified female candidates available, placements continue to be predominately men. Is that an issue? Is there any need to have a remedy to ensure qualified females and males get the opportunity for board placement?

    1. Disproportional representation is all around us, in almost every area of life. You can’t assume it’s caused by discrimination. Although it might be. In this case, it might be discrimination, or it might be that women don’t want to be on boards. You can’t just assume there’s a problem that needs a remedy.

      1. QUOTE: Disproportional representation is all around us, in almost every area of life. You can’t assume it’s caused by discrimination.

        I didn’t utter a word about discrimination. I asked if it was an issue or if the circumstances required a remedy.

        So, now that we’ve clarified that. If we had the dynamic I described previously, what would your assessment be of such circumstances? Would it be an issue? Would it be assumed that’s just how it is?

        1. “Remedy” implies a problem. There would have to be evidence of a problem. Disproportionate representation is not a problem.

          1. So, are you saying…despite knowing the potential advantages female board members and having qualified female candidates available, placements continue to be predominately men…is no problem and just the way it is?

              1. Thanks for the clarification. I’d agree it isn’t necessarily a problem. Yet, it would be very curious to me that boards knowing that female participation could bring advantages, having female talent readily available, would consistently select predominately male members. So, I want to explore the causes of that dynamic…especially since that behavior could be counter-productive to the typical focus of boards (to guard shareholder interests and increase shareholder value).

                Yet, as you say disproportional representation is all around us. Given that, it’s curious that some feel the aforementioned scenario with male board members is not problematic but take umbrage when other groups act in a similar way. In fact, some research indicates those groups are somewhat penalized for such.

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