25 janvier 2018
ESSEC Business School, Fudan University School of Management, FGV-EAESP, Keio Business School – 4 of the world’s leading higher education institutes with a goal to bring together their knowledge and professional expertise in the pursuit of empowering their students and others with ideas that will make an impact and trigger positive change for tomorrow’s world linking business and society.
Today, What about DIVERSITY on BOARDS ?
Thanks to Tom Gamble for a rewriting in English
Women administrators: an issue of change « NOT ONLY FOR GENDER DIVERSITY «
Extracts :
On a Board, …nominated women who wish to remain true to their role, and spurred by their idealised conception of a board, may sometimes have a problem of posture. They thus find themselves confronted with a choice: resist and remain firm, or renounce and conform (over-adaptation) and therefore lose their singular added-value… As such, a new issue is raised: is it possible to apply this research to the question of diversity of origin on Boards?
Delving into the academic literature regarding in minority/in-majority relations and at the same time moving away from the gender issue, it is possible to open the debate on the diversity of origin that has been almost absent (4% of the CAC 40) on Boards in France. As mentioned earlier, a certain male (and white) model is currently going through a crisis of obsolescence in the face of the new world and the diversity of our society.
- Qualities linked to the ‘in minority’ posture regarding candidates from diverse origins (meaning non-white)
- The minority learns to have a capacity to listen to others, develop a capacity for cooperation, compromise, mediation and a capacity for anticipation because it has learnt to ‘listen to’…the majority
- The complex of the impostor leads it to be consistent, prepare meetings, take ownership of subjects and ask questions.
- Once its potential leaves discrimination behind it is led to possibly opposing what it might consider as non-compliant with its convictions, and to be very attached to ethics and rules (which protect it).
- Excepting if a reflex of over-adaptation intervenes (too often) or avoidance – hence the major interest in the concept of sufficient minority proportion (like that of more mental than technical preparation because the ability for board members to speak out is sometimes insufficient), the minority can then set itself the choice of resisting or conforming.
READ more:
And for a full list of references and notes accompanying this article, visit the French version on Involved In #Governance & #Diversity
Useful links:
- Viviane de Beaufort’s previous article Shareholder Activism in France
- Her book Génération Startuppeuse
- For more information on gender policy