The involvement of the board of directors in the enhancement of CSR has more and more emphasis. The board is responsible for the definition of corporate goals and their achievement, driving managers to set overriding goals and to diffuse them within the organization (OECD, 2015); in other words, companies need leadership commitment to become sustainable (Eccles et al., 2012; Salvioni et al., 2016; Winston and Patterson, 2006). The capacity of the board to identify the key performance success factors, which, according to the CSR approach, correspond with the expectations and satisfaction of wide stakeholders’ groups, is a requisite for seizing opportunities and managing risk obtaining a competitive advantage in a globalized world.

International guidelines also emphasize the role of the board for the achievement of sustainable goals. The European Parliament adopted in 2013 a resolution where the importance of the commitment by the board on CSR is stressed (2012/2098(INI). In this way, the board structure favours the creation of a culture of sustainability when social issues and sustainability are the guiding principles intrinsic to every board’s goal and decision-making process.

The UN Global Compact published in 2010 a document called ‘UN Global Compact Management Model’ which emphasizes the leadership commitment to mainstream the Global Compact principles into strategies and operations, making them part of the corporate culture. Again, another document by UN Global Compact (Guide to Corporate Sustainability, 2015) remarks the role of company’s leadership in changing the business toward a more sustainable way of corporate development. This means the board uniquely can set a company’s long-term goals and lay out strategies that allow for sustainable business. Getting boards tuned into sustainability is not just good business sense, but also increasing their fiduciary duty linked to risk management, growth opportunities and stakeholder interests. Board gender diversity is based on both ethical and economical arguments (Campbell and Mínguez-Vera, 2008). The latter are the object of this study.

The gender diversity in corporate boards and the connected impact on corporate sustainability objectives and strategies are matters studied by many scholars (Hyun et al., 2016). Someone suggests that women have a more relevant inclination than men have towards ethics and social themes, affecting corporate strategies (Burton and Hegarty, 1999; Byron and Post, 2016; Cook and Glass, 2017; Marz and Powers, 2003; Panwar et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2006).

At the same time, the presence of boards  made  up  bymen and women marks a corporate sensibility for women potentiality, giving a signal of equal opportunity promotion at social level (Bernardi and Threadgill, 2010; Ramirez, 2003).

Part of the literature focused on the relationship between gender diversity and financial corporate performance finding a positive link (Carter et al., 2003; Erhardt and Werbel, 2003; Webb, 2004) or weak/ no effects (Adams and Ferreira, 2009; Post et al., 2011; Pletzer et al., 2015; Shrader et al., 1997; Smith et al., 2006).

Anyway, the gender balance on boards is considered one of the way to make the world more sustainable, as in the will of the international organizations. The empowerment of women and their full participation in economic life is essential to build strong economies (Agarwal and Malhotra, 2016), to establish more stable and just societies, to improve the quality of life also for men, families and communities, and to propel business objectives (Un Global Compact, 2015).

With its Strategy for Equality between Women and Men, the European Commission put the issue of women on boards high on the political agenda already in 2010. In 2011 it called for credible self-regulation by companies to ensure better gender balance in companies’ supervisory boards. One year later it became clear that progress was not visible, which is why in November 2012 the Commission started putting forward a legislative proposal aiming to accelerate the progress towards a more balanced representation of women and men on boards of listed companies.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by United Nations (2015) can be viewed as an historic decision for a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative goals and targets to be implemented within 2030, where the role of women in corporate governance is clearly emphasized. There is a consensus that a more equitable world could be a more sustainable world. In this context, the gender inequality is a concrete obstacle for the development of sustainable future paths.

In recent decades, scholars, international corporate governance principles, regulators and securities have focused on the relationship between board structure and sound governance, emphasizing the importance of developing relations with wide categories of stakeholders as a condition for the planning of sustainable strategies by companies (Eccles et al., 2014; Carroll et al., 2016; Freeman and Dmytriyev,  2017). The gender balance in corporate governance bodies seems to favour the corporate approach for CSR and sustainability as confirmed by the literature review (Daniel et al., 2013; Kahreh et al., 2014; Harjoto et al., 2015; Gupta et al., 2015; Dawar and Singh, 2016; Ciavarella, 2017) and, at the same time, it is the visible commitment of a will to make the managerial business more sustainable, that is a person-friendly business model respectful of diversities.

In other words, a balanced gender board is the first step to adopt the gender mainstreaming (GM) approach by company. GM is a managerial tool focused on the satisfaction of both men and women corporate stakeholders’ interests in the long-term by means of devoted objectives and strategies within the organization (European Commission, 2015; Padovani, 2016 and Brenner, 2009). GM is not a mere compliance to self-discipline rules or external law but it is an effectiveness policy of CSR with the aim to strengthen the corporate value in the long run. This emphasizes the importance of gender diversity on boards for better corporate performance in terms of competitive and financial effects for company but also for the whole economic system (Kozma, 2012). This view goes beyond both the philanthropic and the utilitarian interpretation of CSR (Holme and Watts, 2000; Kotler and Lee 2005) to an integrated approaches closely linked to the company core business (European Commission, 2011; Salvioni and Gennari 2014; Mosca and Civera, 2017).

The aim of this work, although its limits, is to give a wide perspective about the gender balance on board, considering not so much the impact gender diversity can have on firm performance, that is a matter studied by many scholars, but the importance this matter has for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2030 Agenda. Gender diversity does not necessarily imply inequality; it happens when this diversity is a source of advantages for someone and disadvantages for someone else. Women do not participate in the global economy to the same extent as men do (Nolan et al., 2016) and that’s for sure. The McKinsey Global Institute (2015) estimates that a scenario in which women achieved complete gender parity with men could increase global output by more than one-quarter relative to a business-as-usual scenario.

This article aims at giving a perspective about gender diversity focused on the corporate culture, this latter defined as ways of thinking, values and beliefs that influence persons’ behaviors (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1973). The change in business culture starts at the leaders’ level and the leadership commitment allows company to become sustainable (Eccles et al., 2012). Gender balance on boards could be a factor of long-term success when it is considered by companies a way to be more sustainable, with benefits for communities and for companies themselves in a globalized and more and more competitive world.

The concept of sustainability in business refers to the creation of shared value (Porter and Kramer, 2011), which involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Boards of directors should develop strategies and policies inspired by this concept, shifting from short-term profits goals to investments in future and sustainable growth in the interests of all stakeholders, shareholders  included  (Goedhart  et  al.,  2015;  Salvioni and Gennari, 2017). So, the boards have the responsibility to believe in the opportunities connected with a corporate sustainable development and to change their business model according with this vision. The presence of women on boards can be a crucial factor encouraging the development of sustainability goals oriented to the creation of long-term shared value.

On these premises, the article is structured as follow. First, the literature review about the women on boards depicts the theoretical framework with reference to the gender balance in top positions and corporate sustainability. Women on boards are not only a specific goal part of the Agenda, but it is also a way to achieve the other Agenda’s objectives. The next section is about the methodology and research. In particular, the research questions leading the analysis are the following. For each research question motivation, approach, methodology of research are given.

RQ1 What is the current situation about gender diversity on boards in Europe, considering also age and nationality diversity?

RQ2 Why do women not succeed in top positions?

RQ3 How is Europe marking out the path for a more gender equality into the business?

Finally, basing on the results obtained we answered the research questions and made some conclusions, implications and future lines of research.

Many scholars directed their studies to the impact of gender differences in corporate governance bodies because corporate directors make decisions that affect local communities, national and international economies (e.g. choices about workforce and human resources, internationalization and delocalization strategies, listing on financial markets).

The composition of governing bodies determines the way the business is managed and the effectiveness of a sound corporate governance for the value creation in the future. In fact, according to the agency theory (Fama, 1980; Jensen and Meckling, 1976), the board gets the mandate to govern by the ownership being responsible for the definition of company objectives and its structure in order to guarantee corporate performance in the long-run.

The most popular approach in the study of the board effectiveness has been to relate board composition to various measures of firm performance (Rao and Tilt, 2016). The attention for CSR issues has encouraged the studies about the relations between board structure and the corporate orientation towards social responsibility and sustainability (Driscoll, 2001; Zhang et al., 2013).

Then, the board composition is an issue related not only with corporate performance, but also with the possibility to  make  the  world  more  sustainable,  taking part in the program of the 2030 Agenda. According to Ramirez (2003), one of the means of supporting gender diversity in society as a whole is by starting with promoting gender equity in corporate boards of directors (Bernardi, 2010).

Within the literature on board composition, the link between women on boards and corporate performance is debated and it is part of the literature about the importance of board diversity for company’s performance. Diversity in general is defined as the heterogeneity among board members, and it has an infinite number of dimensions (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Diversity in working teams has been studied in several research fields and is considered as any attribute which differentiates people (Williams and O’Reilly, 1998).

Diversity is largely considered as a double-edged sword (Hambrick et al., 1996; Rao and Tilt, 2016) because of its benefits and drawbacks. Among the firsts, we mention the broader perspective that characterizes the decision-making processes generating different alternatives, with positive effects on group’s performance ((Hambrick et al., 1996). On the other side, diversity can have a negative effect in the group processes when the individuals do not believe in it (Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). According with the similarity-attraction perspective, the positive effects of team homogeneity increases identification determining an higher decision quality within the group (Williams and O’Reilly, 1998; Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). We share the information-decision-making perspective emphasizing the positive impact of diversity on decision making (Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004; Williams and O’Reilly, 1998) Among the various board diversity characteristics, gender diversity is one of the most significant issues for scholars, but also for politicians (Kang et al., 2007; Rao and Tilt, 2016).

The lines of research about gender diversity cover different areas. Part of the literature focused on the relationship between gender diversity and financial corporate performance, finding a positive link (Carter et al., 2003; Erhardt and Werbel, 2003; Webb, 2004) or weak/ no effects (Adams and Ferreira, 2009; Pletzer et al., 2015; Shrader et al., 1997; Smith and Smith, 2006). The empirical results that researchers are produced are far for being straight-forward (Homberg and Bui, 2013) because of the limitations of the input-output model which attempts to link the board structure (input) directly to company performance (output), ignoring the processes involved in the board’s performance of its tasks (Dalton et al. 1999; Gabrielsson and Huse, 2004; Golden and Zajac, 2001; Macus, 2008).

Others, according with social identity theory, depict the presence of women in top positions as a collective phenomenon that must be studied with reference to groups instead of individuals (Adams et al., 2001; Brown, 2010; Chen et al., 2014; Di Tomaso et al., 2007). Considering  women   on   boards   as   a   group   affects situations as the prevention of conflicts in management activities, the different perspective in the resolution of complex problems, the greater attention for stakeholder and for different types of diversity. It is also clear that inequality between women and men is a relational issue and that inequalities are not going to be resolved through a focus only on women. More attention need to be brought to the relations between women and men, particularly with regard to the responsibilities in workplace and the potential for decision-making. Thus, there is a need to move away from women as a target group, to gender balance as a development goal.

In some authors’ opinion, that embrace the self-schema theory (Konrad et al., 2000), women in top positions run the business differently, because of their values. Women have a more relevant inclination than men have towards ethics, philanthropy and social themes (Eagly et al., 2003; Nielsen and Huse, 2010; Post et al., 2011; Wang and Coffey, 1992), with connected effects on CSR and corporate social strategies (Bear et al., 2010; Burton and Hegarty, 1999; Galbreath, 2011; Ibrahim and Angelidis, 1994; Kruger, 2009; Marz et al., 2003; Panwar et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2013). Women among board members can drive a change in the leadership style (Paoloni and Lombardi, 2017): for some scholars women seem to adopt a servant leadership style focused on service to others and confident that the role of organization is to create people who can build a better tomorrow (Fridell et al., 2009; Parris and Peachey, 2013).

Based on the previous considerations, our perspective refers to the gender diversity on board as a tool for the promotion of a corporate culture inspired by CSR. Corporate culture, defined as ways of thinking, values and beliefs that influence people’s behaviour (Green, 1988; Kerr and Slocum, 2005; Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1973) can be considered the real drive behind a board’s decision-making processes. Authors have argued that corporate culture, instead of management technique, is the key to corporate excellence (Brondoni, 2010; Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Peters and Waterman, 1982).

A balanced gender representation on boards expresses the appreciation of different abilities, talents and points of view according with an inclusive vision of business that is the condition for a more sustainable world as stated by 2030 Agenda recognizing gender equality as a crucial contribution to progress across all the goals and targets (Un Women, 2018). 

The gender diversity in corporate top-level positions can be the result of a different approach by companies that ranges from the elimination of discrimination in accordance with binding legislative rules, to positive actions with the aim to promote equal opportunities. Positive actions act on particular aspects of inequalities, producing effects in short time and inducing a gradual cultural change. They are based on the recognition of equality in opportunities, affirming the legitimacy of positive discrimination to rebalance the consequences of an initial disadvantage. Binding gender quotas on boards fall under this category.

The opportunity of gender quotas is debated. On the one hand, it is a step toward a more awareness by companies about the importance to give value to gender diversity; on the other hand, it is criticized because of possible problems resulting from a legislative imposition. One of these problems could be the tokenism (Kanter, 1977), that refers to the situation that exists when minority group members (tokens) are hired or promoted because of their minority group membership or to ensure the respect of government or organizational quotas (Zimmer, 1988).

Being a minority in a group, tokens are submitted to performance pressures to make them visible to the rest of the group (visibility), they are informally excluded by the dominant group that exaggerates its commonality and the difference of the token (polarization), and they suffer the stereotypes or generalizations made by the dominant group (assimilation). In other words, although organizational structures are assumed to be gender neutral, they are not (Comeig et al., 2017).

The gender balance will be fully realized when it will be part of conscious sustainable corporate strategies, that are the results of a new business model based on the GM thought as promoted by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2030 Agenda includes the gender balance on boards within the goals for a more sustainable world, declaring the importance of women in top positions for more sustainable communities and nations.

The soul that moves the Agenda’s initiatives is the engagement of all actors moving in the society: the gender balance in top position is, at the same time, the result of the efforts by nations, institutions and companies and the premise for the achievement of the other goals of the Agenda, nurturing a virtuous circle for a real corporate culture inspired to sustainability.

Women’s presence as directors signifies that women play a full part of citizen of organizations and society (Trjesen et al., 2009). Involving different actors, the agenda seeks to promote the GM as the most evolved phase in the promotion of equal opportunities for men and women, starting from the individual rights to redesign the whole system of interventions (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 1997). While mainstreaming is clearly essential for securing human rights and social justice for women as well as men, it is also increasingly recognized that incorporating gender perspectives in different areas of development ensures the effective achievement of other social and economic goals (United Nations, 2002).

Figure 1 shows that considering women on boards according with GM approach represent not only the achievement of a specific sub-goal (5.5) of Goal 5 ‘Gender Equality’, but also a way for the other 2030 Agenda’s objectives. In particular,  getting  top  corporate positions by women allows them having more salary to invest in educational and welfare matters for them and their families directly favouring the achievement of SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 4 (Quality Education) and indirectly contributing to the economic welfare of nations (Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth). Furthermore, women, as primary managers in households, can play a critical role in the promotion of more sustainable energies and more responsible models of production and consumption in the companies where they work. This situation together with the natural vocation of women for the ethics and social aspects of business, as the self-schema theory marked, favours the definition of corporate strategies oriented to CSR, aiding companies towards the SDGs 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 13 (Climate Action), 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land).

The achievement of leadership position by women, thanks to their skills in technology and science, allows them to actively give their contribution for the development of resilient infrastructures, inclusive and sustainable industrialization and innovation (Goal 9), assisting the idea of a global development based on the reduction of inequalities within and among countries (Goal 10). Finally, the percentage of women on boards is itself a direct measure of the level of reaching of SDGs 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

Nowadays women cover a minority positions in public institutions and private companies. The Report of the Secretary-General, ‘Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’, E/2017/66 (2017) illustrates that globally women’s participation in single or lower Houses of national parliaments reached 23.4 per cent in 2017, just 10 percentage points higher than in 2000. Women are still under represented in managerial positions: in the majority of the 67 countries with data from 2009 to 2015, women held less than a third of senior and middle management positions. Hence, the scarce presence of women in corporate governance bodies is a fact. In the next Section we started by the data analysis about the number of women covering leadership role in Europe to go in-depth the reasons of the current situation. 

RQ1) What is the current situation about gender diversity on boards in Europe, considering also age and nationality diversity?

Motivation: The motivation of this research question refers to the limits of the existing general gender database. In fact, the data are constantly monitored for a limited number of countries (for example, only countries belonging to European Union), and focalized on government or private listed companies (UN Women, 2018). The other demographic attributes, together with gender, which express diversity in working teams are nationality and age (Ortu et al., 2016).

Approach: We started by the database of European Institute of Gender Equality (EIGE), which focuses on largest listed companies that are companies belonging to the primary blue-chip index registered in each country. In this way, it takes a look on companies which certainly have an high impact on economies because of their dimension, but that do not fully represent the commitment of the entrepreneurial spirit of a nation. For this reason we complete the understanding of the current situation about women on boards in Europe using a private database (BoardEx), which gives information about European listed and not listed, private and not private companies’ boards, according with a network logic. It started building out public organizations located in the UK, when building profiles for individuals affiliated with  those  companies  it  then  built organizational profiles for all of their affiliations, and then build out those profiles and individuals and so on and so forth.

Methodology: To answer the first research question we carried on a descriptive analysis of quantitative data using secondary sources (Tesch, 1990). Our analysis consists of grouping and interpreting data by BoardEx based on our theoretical constructs (Patton, 1990), in the awareness of the strengths and limitations of secondary data sources. On the one hand, the large amount of available data guarantees the analysis relevance, but on the other hand, we are conscious that this data were not collected to address our particular research need (Crowton, 1998).

The research follows these steps. First, we selected a consistent period for the analysis, considering the available data by BoardEx (2000-2016). Afterwards, we calculated simple statistical measures as proportions calculated as sex distributions within the categories of a characteristic (Table 1). Table 1 measures both the gender gap, where per cents in the distribution of the characteristic ‘board director’ are subtracted from corresponding per cents in the distribution of the characteristic within the male population, and the distribution of each sex by the characteristic ‘nationality’. With regard to the characteristic ‘age’, which is an ordinal variable, we calculated the arithmetic mean, the median and the mode to interpret the distribution of values in the period analyzed (Tables 2 and 3). 

The publicly available database by EIGE procures the situation of women in high level position all over European countries since 2003. The percentage of women in the corporate governance bodies runs from 8.5% in 2003 to about 25% in 2016; even if the percentage is gradually increasing, this situation remarks an under exploitation of women’s potential professional skills. Figure 2a shows the countries over the European average (25.3%) in 2016: Iceland (44.6%), Norway (42.6%), France (41.2%), Sweden (36.9%), Italy (32.3%), Finland (30.1%), Germany (29.5%), Belgium (28.6%), Latvia (28.5%), The Netherlands (27.5%), Denmark (27.1%), United Kingdom (27%). Vice versa, the countries under the European average value (Figure 2b) are: Slovenia (24.8%), Montenegro (23.3%), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRM) (21.7%),  Spain  (20.3%),  Serbia  (20%),  Croatia  (19.9%),  Poland (18.8%), Austria (18.1%), Ireland (16.5%), Bulgaria (15.3%), Lithuania (14.3%), Portugal (14.3%), Luxembourg (12.9%), Turkey (12.6%), Slovakia (12.5%), Hungary (12.3%), Cyprus (10.8%), Czech Republic (10.1%), Romania (10.1%), Greece (9.1%), Estonia (8.8%), and Malta (4.5%).

Analysing the role covered by women in the corporate governance bodies of the largest listed companies, the female presence is higher as executive and non-executive director, while it is much smaller as president (1.6% in 2003 and 7.5% in 2016) and CEO, with a European average value of 5.9% in 2016. The fact women usually cover the position of non-executive directors or members of the supervisory board highlights the independent judgment characteristics typical of these roles dampening the possibility of direct and immediate influence in strategic company’s decisions.

The data by EIGE are complemented with the BoardEx database. The total board members available by the database in the period 2000-2016 is more than 137,000. The database makes available the nationality of board members, but not the State in Europe where the company they work for is located. For this reason, it is not possible making an analysis for single European State to make comparison with the EIGE data. Nevertheless, the percentage of men and women on European companies’ boards considering their European or not nationality is shown in the Table 1.

The trend depicted in Table 1 confirms what is happening in the largest European companies with a low but continuous increase of women in leader positions. The increasing trend for women and the decreasing one for men concern board members with European nationality. The non-EU board members, that represent a small percentage of the total, show a stable trend. This situation raises the issue about the openness of European companies to not European board members and/or the low mobility of directors outside their Continent (Figure 3).

The third demographic attribute expressing diversity in working team studies, together with gender and nationality, is the age characteristic. The trend of the average age of board members in the period under analysis is illustrated in the Table 2. Table 2 depicts an increasing trend with regard to men and women’s age. The total gap is getting smaller (4.75 age gap in 2016 compared with 6.08 age gap in 2000), but this situation is due to the higher increase of women’s age than that of men (Figure 4).

The issue about the imposition of rules favouring a more incisive representation of women on boards is widely debated. Quotas offer a swift solution that pushes companies to comply but do not necessarily allow them the opportunity to ensure the best fit for board positions (Durbin, 2012). This is why the EU countries fail to agree about gender quotas. The issue of women on boards is treated with different approaches by States: some of them legislate; others prefer the ‘comply or explain’ criteria (according to self-discipline codes by Stock Exchanges or other institutions); others recommend compliance with certain behaviours; some States do nothing (Table 4).

The situation of countries where the gender issue is managed by soft actions, but that are greatly above the EU average in terms of women on boards (for example, Latvia) supports the view that cultural background is largely more effective than binding rules. In this sense, the results obtained in countries thanks to binding interventions must be deemed as the starting point for a cultural change in the long-run according with GM approach.

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.