Leveraging Women on Boards in Asia: Insights From Thailand

Literature Review

A considerable body of empirical evidence maintains a positive relationship between female involvement in upper management, particularly the board of directors, and enhanced outcomes for firms. The assertion of a firm-level benefit from gender diversity is based on theoretical streams shared by the sociology, management, organisational and corporate governance literatures. Herring (2009) provides a good summary of the literature and concludes proponents of diversity argue it enhances firm performance for three reasons. Firstly, diversity improves workplace outcomes as, compared to homogeneous work teams; diverse work teams have greater resources and insights for problem solving (Cox, 2001; Adams and Ferreira, 2009). Secondly, innovation depends less on homogeneous individuals than on diverse groups working together and capitalising on their individuality (Page, 2007). Thirdly, diversity can influence customers’ perceptions and purchasing practices (Sen and Battacharya, 2001).