Women On French Corporate Board Of Directors: How Do They Differ From Their Male Counterparts?

Abstract

Our research aims at exploring individuals characteristics of women on Boards in the French context. In the first part of our paper, we discuss the different theoretical frameworks which supported the business case of gender diversity on Boards of Directors and expose our hypothesis regarding differences in women and men characteristics. The second part presents our methods, measurements and data. Then, we focus on our empirical study. Our sample consists of the French Index SBF 120 companies. We studied the profile of 1,250 directors collecting information from the firms annual reports of year 2010, using various scales defined by previous research on that field in the AngloSaxon literature. Our findings confirm that integrating women on boards has an impact on the Human and Social Capital of Boards but not as much as might have been expected. It is worth noting that men and women board members seem to build their human and social capital through the same educational process in France. Nonetheless, our work shows significant differences between men and women regarding professional experience and board member status.