What is women’s position in Brazil’s board interlocking network? An analysis covering the period from 1997 to 2015

Until very recently, the companies’ boards of directors have shown a strong male predominance, while controversial results regarding the insertion of womenin these bodies have prevailed. Given this, this research aimed to investigate the evolution of women’s participation in the boards of directors of Braziliancompanies listed on B3 and the position of these directors in the corporate board interlock network, between 1997 and 2015. To understand this phenomenon, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology was adopted and several indicators were. The results indicate that women’s participations has increased top management positions of the Brazilian corporate environment and women have begun n to integrate the boards of directors, a scenario still far from the reality observed in developed countries. Nonetheless, by analyzing the corporate network connector , we have concluded that women reach high proximity, since they have a high degree of centrality in the network, but they also lack the potential for intermediation. Such results signal the need to increase gender diversity at the top level of companies, which could raise the quality of debate on boards of directors and improve levels of corporate governance.