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Nationality and Gender Diversity on Swiss Corporate Boards
Author(s) -
Ruigrok Winfried,
Peck Simon,
Tacheva Sabina
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
corporate governance: an international review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.866
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1467-8683
pISSN - 0964-8410
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8683.2007.00587.x
Subject(s) - nationality , gender diversity , diversity (politics) , independence (probability theory) , accounting , business , order (exchange) , demographic economics , sample (material) , corporate governance , political science , immigration , law , economics , finance , statistics , chemistry , mathematics , chromatography
For a sample of 210 Swiss publicly listed firms we analyse the characteristics of all 1678 directors in the year 2003 in order to investigate how board members' nationality and gender interact with directors' level of independence, number of other directorships and demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that whereas foreign directors tend to be more independent, women directors are more likely to be affiliated to firm management through family ties and that foreign directors hold significantly lower numbers of directorships at other Swiss boards. Female and foreign directors also differ in terms of educational background, educational level, age and board tenure. Some of our gender diversity findings are different from previous research. We conclude that in order to manage diversity on corporate boards it is imperative to understand the characteristics, qualifications and affiliations that these directors bring to the boardroom and that it is important to take national circumstances into account rather than relying on research results from other countries.