How Political Ideology and Informal Societal Institutions Shape Gender Diversity on Board Committees

While gender diversity on the board of directors (BODs) has increased in recent years, the representation of women on major board committees has advanced at a slower pace. This indicates ‘policy decoupling,' a form of tokenism whereby firms appoint women to their BODs to comply with regulatory and societal pressures but deny them access to positions of substantive influence. However, policy decoupling varies across societies, and women are more likely to ‘take the gavel' in certain contexts than in others. We present a theory explaining how incumbent governments' political ideology, in isolation and in conjunction with the informal societal institutions of gender equality values and civil society participation, shapes policy decoupling. Our findings show that female representation in major board committees, relative to the overall percentage of women on BODs, is higher in countries ruled by left-leaning governments. Contrastingly, gender equality values weaken this positive effect, pointing to a diffusion of responsibility between government and society in tackling gender inequality. Lastly, civil society participation does not weaken the focal relationship, likely because strong civil society actors vigilantly prevent left-leaning governments from shifting responsibility for including women in positions of real influence elsewhere.