Gender Diversity in the Senior Management of Large Technology Companies

Introduction

The issue of gender¹ in business is highly topical. This issue is subject to interpretation and, on occasion, biased approaches that often prove controversial. The interest that this issue has elicited from policymakers reflects the firm belief that boards of directors that have greater diversity are more effective and that women are under-represented on these boards of directors. These factors explain the recent tendency to implement actions that promote gender diversity in corporate management. Between 2008 and 2015, 32 countries implemented 42 policies to foster board diversity (Adams, 2016).

Such issues have also been addressed by scholars. Particularly during the last decade, many studies have investigated various facets of the relationship between the representation of women on companies’ boards of directors and these companies’ financial performance (Terjesen, Couto, & Francisco, 2016) and market image (Al-Shaer & Zaman, 2016), as well as the impact of this representation on decision making (Nielsen & Huse, 2010). However, this literature contains certain gaps. For example, there is a lack of consensus on the role of gender diversity in corporate governance (Isidro & Sobral, 2015). Furthermore, studies have generally focused on large companies, particularly publicly listed companies. This choice of focus results from two factors: the applicability of certain standards and guidelines, especially regarding the proportion of minorities that must be represented on the boards of these companies; and the greater data availability, which enables the analysis of performance, profitability, and financial structure.

It is much less common for studies to examine the issue of gender in senior management from a sector perspective. Sector analyses of the digital economy or the collaborative economy are practically nonexistent. The lack of such research is particularly relevant in today’s context, which is characterized by the hyperconnectivity and technological revolution that define the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution and that exert unprecedented effects on society (Cheong & Lee, 2017).

Consequently, this study focuses on the business sector that contributes the most to shaping the digital economy and that, in a sense, acts as a catalyst for the development of a new digital society, which is replacing the industrial society that dates back to the 19^th century. Specifically, this study focuses on large companies, in terms of market capitalization, in the global technology sector. One example of the importance of this sector is the fact that the five largest companies in the world by market capitalization—Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Amazon Inc, and Facebook Inc. (Bloomberg L.P., 2018)—are all technology companies. This list reflects a radical change with respect to the previous decade, when the world’s largest companies were banks, oil companies, and retailers.