Cultural differences and board gender diversity

As evidence of the continuing interest raised by "board gender diversity", major studies (Catalyst, 2008; World Economic Forum, 2010; European Board Diversity Analysis, 2010) were recently carried out and have all led to reports confirming the imbalance of women on boards and the need to address this issue. Moreover, our analysis of these reports indicates that the low proportion of women observed on corporate boards varies across countries, which raises the question as to why? Based on institutional theory and the two sets of cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980) and House (2004), this study hypothesizes and tests whether this variation can be attributed to differences in the cultural settings. Our analysis of the representation of women on board for 5 European countries during 2006 reveals that the culture of a country indeed explains the observed differences. Of the cultural dimensions examined, power distance or a tolerance of inequality, uncertainty avoidance or a lack of tolerance for ambiguity, and masculinity or a preference for domination versus cooperation in superior/subordinate relationships have the highest explicative power for the differences in representation of women on boards that are observed around the world.