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Breaking the boardroom gender barrier: the human capital of female corporate directors

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  • Paul Dunn

Abstract

Although there is a paucity of female corporate directors in Canada, women are slowly managing to break the gender barrier of all-male boards of directors. Using resource dependency theory a model is developed that identifies the human capital characteristics that contribute to a woman being appointed to an all-male board. The model is tested on a sample of 193 Canadian firms that appointed women to their boards of directors between 1996 and 2004. The results show that women who are appointed to all-male boards have specialized knowledge skills; either they have firm-specific knowledge as insiders, or they are support specialists with a specific financial or legal expertise. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Dunn, 2012. "Breaking the boardroom gender barrier: the human capital of female corporate directors," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(4), pages 557-570, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:16:y:2012:i:4:p:557-570
    DOI: 10.1007/s10997-010-9161-2
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    5. Parrotta, Pierpaolo & Smith, Nina, 2013. "Why So Few Women on Boards of Directors? Empirical Evidence from Danish Companies 1997-2007," IZA Discussion Papers 7678, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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