ABSTRACT
Despite the various global, regional and country-level interventions, the progress in improving the gender diversity of boards has been a hot debate to discuss in recent years. Equal representation of women and men at every level of economic, political and social life is vital for inclusive growth and sustainable development, because gender equality has a multiplier effect across all development areas. Related studies highlight that women bring more creativity and innovation, better problem solving and improved decision making at the top, stemming from greater cognitive diversity. Women directors can add additional skills and perspectives that are different from those of male directors as well. However, in some emerging markets, women directors on the board can be appointed solely to fulfill the country governance recommendations and may lack knowledge about the firm; therefore they may add little or no value to the firm. From this point of view, this chapter aims to give insights first into the female labor workforce in selected emerging countries which suffer from gender diversity issues. Second, the current changes in the representation of women directors will be discussed, including an overview of women serving on emerging markets boards in different sectors. This helps to draw conclusions for industries and highly concentrated firms in emerging markets in which there are any women directors.
