The most recent Bentley Research Colloquium focused on Big Data and a broad range of issues and topics surrounding the topic. This series highlights some of the issues examined or suggested by colloquium presenters.
Data can’t explain everything; not even “Big Data” analyses that look deeply at trends over time. If reality mapped to objective numbers only, women would be far more present in the boardroom than they currently are. According to a 2014 Catalyst study, women comprise 46.8 percent of the U.S. Labor Force and have been entering the professional and managerial ranks of U.S. corporations at a rate of 51.4 percent, yet they’re dramatically underrepresented at senior levels: Women constitute only 4.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs and 16.9 percent of these companies’ board seats and corporate officer positions.
While the 2008 financial crisis highlighted media coverage on the boards of directors, academics and practitioners have long followed board composition, including the advancement of women onto corporate boards. Despite nearly 40 years of conversations about equal opportunity, and some corporate equal opportunity policies, despite a wealth of data, research and strategies designed to create opportunities for women, the pace of progress has been glacial and the numbers for women at the top remain disturbingly low.
Why? Could part of the reason be that we have been relying too much on Big Data for relevant research? While Big Data can be particularly insightful in experimental control situations, its usefulness in uncovering complex social interactions has been questioned. Generally, Big Data — which in this field includes, for example, census data, big databases containing government documents and compensation data — offer insights and help identify potentially significant sub-groups as they relate to women’s advancement. More specifically, they help answer questions about magnitude, that is how big the problem is, and where it is located. However, scholars comment on the urgent need for more scholarship and theoretical development on board diversity and on the need to access the boards directly rather than just focus on director demographics and firm financial data.
We at the Center for Women and Business at Bentley University are exploring the reasons behind women’s underrepresentation on corporate boards. The process of appointing directors to boards is one that is often veiled and not explicitly discussed by board members outside their corner offices. In our work, we attempt to uncover this mysterious process by employing a qualitative interview study to explore aspects of corporate governance culture that help explain the lack of gender diversity at the corporate top. As part of my doctoral research, I interviewed 18 male and female directors who currently serve on boards in corporate America. Qualitative results from the study reveal a paradox in that even though “the corporate world is embarrassed by how slow the progress has been [for women],” and even though directors indicate “they want to help increase gender diversity,” they still tend to appoint people who “look just like them.” As one female director states:
“I think that the corporate world is embarrassed by how slow the progress has been . . . I think that men especially want to be part of the solution . . . They are stymied by the fact that it hasn’t happened more quickly, they are confused by it, they don’t know why they’ve lost so many women in their own companies past middle management . . .” (Female director, 2014)
The same director goes on to describe one reason why she thinks women have traditionally been excluded from corner offices:
“[There’s] another reason why it’s been hard for women to break in: We don’t look like all the guys from the corner suite, or on the boards . . . It’s funny because everybody wants more women and people of color on boards, and then you find . . . this contradiction between wanting so badly to find some great women . . . to be on our board and then tending to think of candidates . . . who look just like you and whom you’ve had more experience working with, because our numbers have been so limited in these positions. It’s a Catch-22 for women that’s slowly breaking down, but I think it helps to explain why the progress has been so slow.”
Another important finding that surfaced through the interviews indicates how board nominations and elections are heavily influenced by personal connections to existing board members and that networking is instrumental for both male and female talent. As a director describes:
“I am always asked . . . “What does it take to get on a corporate board?” and I find that it’s very hard to explain. Because most of the women that I know got . . . onto their first boards and subsequent boards the same way that lots of things happen in the business world, which is because of who you know, the contacts that you have, relationships, the networking that you’ve done. Someone thinks of you when a position opens up, as opposed to any kind of a formal way you might hear about.” (Female director, 2014)
An additional finding that stands out is that when asked what it is going to take to put more women on boards, a common answer, especially among male directors, is “Time.” A certain passivity is revealed by this answer and may be exactly what drives the persistent tendency of current directors to largely ignore female candidates and appoint their male counterparts in a process that seems to happen subconsciously.
So what can women do to overcome barriers to advancement at work and on boards? I asked directors in the study what advice they would give to women aspiring to be directors, and these are some key themes emerging from their answers:
- Network — talk especially to people who do not look like you!
- Find a person in the higher ranks of your organization interested and willing to be your sponsor. A sponsor could help you map out a plan for your own career as well as be in a position to actually help you get a promotion that you might deserve.
- Take board readiness workshops so you are prepared to serve on boards when you start to reach the senior ranks.
- Be very good at what you do. Develop specialized expertise or skills that a board might need and be strategic in your career choices.
- Trust in your abilities, skills and training and be confident in the way that you present yourself.
These stories, these complex social interactions revealed via qualitative studies, are very difficult to uncover just by using Big Data. Despite its usefulness in describing and providing insights to many societal problems, Big Data may miss the subtleties and nuances that could be instrumental in guiding solutions for women. In our quest to effectively address the issue of the persistent underrepresentation of women in leadership positions, it may be wise to look beyond the numbers for solutions.
Vasilia Vasiliou is a second-year PhD student in Business and a Fellow at the Center for Women & Business at Bentley University. Her research focuses on women’s advancement to leadership positions, women on boards, and corporate directors.