Beyond Fortune 500: Women in a Global Network of Directors

TL;DR

This study analyzes a global corporate board network to assess women's representation and influence, revealing that women hold a small but significant share of seats and are not marginalized within the network.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive social network analysis of women’s positions on corporate boards worldwide, challenging the notion that women are isolated or excluded.

Findings

Women occupy about 9-13% of board seats globally.

Women’s influence in the network is comparable to that of men.

No evidence found for women acting as 'queen bees' excluding others.

Abstract

In many countries, the representation of women on corporate boards of directors has become a topic of intense political debate. Social networking plays a crucial role in the appointment to a board so that an informed debate requires knowing where women are located in the network of directors. One way to quantify the network is by studying the links created by serving on the same board and by joint appointments on multiple boards. We analyse a network of $\approx 320\,000$ board members of $36\,000$ companies traded on stock exchanges all over the world, focusing specifically on the position of women in the network. Women only have $\approx 9-13\%$ of all seats, but they are not marginalised. Applying metrics from social network analysis, we find that their influence is close to that of men. We do not find evidence to support previous claims that women play the role of "queen bees" that exclude other women from similar positions.