Women should be considered for new board positions in banks bailed out by the government, to counter the male dominance of senior directorships at the biggest companies, the Cranfield School of Management has recommended.
“The evidence is that women are not more risk-averse, but they are more risk-aware,” it says.
It points to the fact that the number of female directors in FTSE 100 firms has barely risen over the past 10 years, with more than a fifth still run by all-male boards.
Do you think it has a point? Or is it a bad idea to set quotas and targets in this way?
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10 comments so far
I think that anyone considered for a board position in a large company should have a proven track record of successful management in it or a similar company.
Any other criteria is nonsense and is what has led us to the current situation.
- Posted by AndyI agree that more women should join the banking industry since this has traditionally been male-dominated.
- Posted by DinaIf the “risk awareness” of women is of value in helping a company avoid over-extending itself in times of irrational exuberance, then natural selection tells us to expect a sharp increase in the number of women in the boardroom in the years following the bursting of any bubble - since you’d expect more of the companies with women in positions of sufficient influence to survive thanks to the women’s superior advice and strategies.
The dot-com bubble came and went during the past ten years, so if the number of female directors “has barely risen” in that time, then we may conclude that either women are not more risk aware (which everyday experience suggests is the case) or else their enhanced risk awareness is of no use in helping a company survive. QED.
- Posted by Ian KemmishA profoundly desperate and uninformed suggestion.
The reason that most of the problems have occurred is not due to the fact that it is a male dominated environment but due to the obsessive desire to fill senior positions with MBA’s. Unfortunately these people have all learned the same MBA taught business model - leveraging and ensuring that you get a deal done irrespective of the consequences so that you can look successfull. The other big problem is the practice of hiring an individual who has run an airline business to run a bank because the thought process is that if they can run one big industry they can run any big industry.They usually can’t.
Until this mentality/hiring practice is stopped you will not see any difference in the performance of the banks irrespective of wether it is men or women running the day to day operations.
Either Cranfield School of Management is long women about to graduate with MBA’s and needs to generate jobs for them to justify the huge fees it charges,or it has not done its homework on just how many unsuccessful senior business women litter the corporate world. I suspect that it is highly guilty of both.
- Posted by nickRidiculous.
Setting quotas based on sex in simply political correctness going too far. Are they seriously suggesting that if there is a position available on the board of a bank, that a man who could be better qualified and have more experience should be turned down for the job just because there aren’t enough women on the board!?
Any selection shoud be made purely on the basis of qualifications and suitability for the job. Whether the best qulified person is male or female makes no difference.
Cranfield School Of Management - simpletons.
- Posted by iainSelection should be on the basis of qualification and ability. That has nothing to do with gender. Let politicians interfere with this sort of stuff and the gov will have a mess on its hands.
It’s a super-stupid suggestion coming from the same quarters, no doubt, as those who put us in the front line of this mess at the outset.
- Posted by DaneFeminism came about because of women’s fully justified sense of inferiority with regard to certain types of ability. And because the UK is besotted with this craziness it is constantly trying to force institutions to change so they fit the abilities which women actually do have in abundance. Unfortunately, large institutions like banks function in the whole world and taking on women for the sake of doing so will weaken our international position at a time when it is disastrous to do so. I live in the Czech Republic where women are far, far more formidable, on average, than their whingeing British equivalents but remain feminine. They think feminism is pathetic because it means being psychologically at the infantile stage of ‘blaming daddy when a toy breaks’.
- Posted by John LambleWhat is the evidence that women generally are more risk-aware than men, and what about businesswomen? Something tells me applications to the School are down, and some bright spark thought he (or she!) had a good way of getting them in the news - except they didn’t do it properly. This is sixth-form debating society stuff, and on about the same level - fun but completely worthless.
- Posted by MatthewMatthew, repeat something often enough and some fool (at Cranfield)will believe it.The evidence then makes itself up.
- Posted by nickWomen will never be fully emancipated because they are saddled with a womb.
This means, boys, that they have no choice if they get pregant and many great women leaders and execs have been lost forever due to having to raise a family.
More men need to be prepared to sacrifice their own careers in order to become the father who looks after the kis(s). Simple as that.
No, we should not interfere with boardrooms but if women feel overlooked, then take the idiots to a tribunal and sting them!
Women are great in the boardroom but the biological imperative is what human being is all about.
The compulsion to breed is dominant with most women - otherwise why would they bother??
- Posted by AwfulTruth