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Syftet med denna studie har varit att utreda och föreslå strategier för hur bolagsstyrelser kan öka sin mångfald och bli mer diversifierade. Vidare var syftet att undersöka och presentera hur styrelsearbetet skulle påverkas av den ökade diversifieringen. Vi har utfört en kvalitativ studie och använt intervjuer för datainsamling. Det insamlade empiriska materialet har sedan analyserats med utgångspunkt i de valda teorierna. I våra slutsatser kommer vi fram till att styrelsesammansättningen påverkar beslutsfattandet och att en ökad diversifiering ger positiva effekter på styrelsearbetet. De alternativa strategier som presenteras är att kvinnor måste lära sig maktspelet och söka sig till jobb där de har resultatansvar. Det näringslivet kan göra är att få ledningen att jobba aktivt med dessa frågor genom exempelvis belöningssystem. Valberedningarnas arbetssätt bör övervakas och kontrolleras i syfte att säkerställa att en utredning har skett på ett adekvat sätt. Staten kan skapa incitament genom skattereduktioner eller genom att agera i form av en stor inköpare som erbjuder värdefulla kontrakt. / This study aims to present and propose strategies on how corporate boards can become more diversified by increasing the representation of women. Furthermore we will investigate how the composition of corporate boards affects the decision making process. This thesis has a qualitative approach and the results are based on data from interviews. The conclusions of this paper are that greater diversification in the composition of corporate boards affects the decision making process in a positive way. The strategies proposed are that it is necessary for women to learn the power game and to have a position with responsibility over results. The companies have to get their management to actively work with this issue through reward systems. The work of the nominating committees should be monitored to ensure that the adequate method is used when nominating the directors.  Our last conclusion is that the government can create incentives by tax reductions or by using their role as an important purchaser that offers valuable contracts.

Women are often predominated in so-called "women´s jobs" including nursing, teaching and administration while jobs such as manager, board of director and financier are dominated by men. Hence, the corporate board has been male-dominated. However, in recent decades the number of women entering the boardroom has increased. Women are aware of their opportunites in terms of managerial jobs. Nevertheless, Sweden has one of the highest levels of gender equality in the world. Women with business experience and education are steadily moving upp the corporate ladder. The importance of female directors´ contributions on the corporate board has been recognized. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how women contribute on the corporate board in Sweden. The focus of the study lies on the perspectives of female and male directors. The study was conducted with the use of a qualitative method. It provided us with an understanding of the subject based on respondents´ experience. In order tol fulfill the purpose, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with male and female directors on the corporate board in Sweden. The empirical data was analyzed by the process of qualitative data analysis (QDA). We have increased the knowledge of female directors´ contributions on the corporate board in Sweden. Female directors do not posses a profound understanding of female customers. There is a strong link between female representatives and enhanced board communication. Furthermore, there is no relation between female directors and companies´ involvement in charitable activities. There is no difference in the way female and male directors monitor the board.

<p>Women are often predominated in so-called "women´s jobs" including nursing, teaching and administration while jobs such as manager, board of director and financier are dominated by men. Hence, the corporate board has been male-dominated. However, in recent decades the number of women entering the boardroom has increased. Women are aware of their opportunites in terms of managerial jobs. Nevertheless, Sweden has one of the highest levels of gender equality in the world. Women with business experience and education are steadily moving upp the corporate ladder. The importance of female directors´ contributions on the corporate board has been recognized. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how women contribute on the corporate board in Sweden. The focus of the study lies on the perspectives of female and male directors. The study was conducted with the use of a qualitative method. It provided us with an understanding of the subject based on respondents´ experience. In order tol fulfill the purpose, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with male and female directors on the corporate board in Sweden. The empirical data was analyzed by the process of qualitative data analysis (QDA). We have increased the knowledge of female directors´ contributions on the corporate board in Sweden. Female directors do not posses a profound understanding of female customers. There is a strong link between female representatives and enhanced board communication. Furthermore, there is no relation between female directors and companies´ involvement in charitable activities. There is no difference in the way female and male directors monitor the board.</p>

abstract: One theoretical research topic in organizational economics is the information issues raised in different organizations. This has been extensively studied in last three decades. One common feature of these research is focusing on the asymmetric information among different agents within one organization. However, in reality, we usually face the following situation. A group of people within an organization are completely transparent to each other; however, their characters are not known by other organization members who are outside this group. In my dissertation, I try to study how this information sharing would affect the outcome of different organizations. I focus on two organizations: corporate board and political parties. I find that this information sharing may be detrimental for (some of) the members who shared information. This conclusion stands in contrast to the conventional wisdom in both corporate finance and political party literature. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Economics 2014

Denna studies syfte är att undersöka huruvida det finns ett samband mellan andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter och total risk i svenska onoterade aktiebolag. Tidigare forskning har riktats mot noterade aktiebolag och då huruvida det finns ett samband mellan andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter och företags finansiella- respektive rörelserisk. Dessa två komponenter utgör tillsammans total risk varför det ter sig intressant att undersöka hur denna påverkas av andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter. Utifrån detta formas studiens tre hypoteser, vilka är att det finns ett samband mellan andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter och total risk, respektive finansiell risk samt rörelserisk i ett svenskt onoterat aktiebolag. Studien genomförs i positivistisk tradition, och därmed utförs statistiska tester utifrån kvantitativ data. Detta för att kunna urskilja ett eventuellt samband mellan den beroende variabeln, total risk, och den oberoende variabeln andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter. Den empiriska datan samlas in via databasen Retriever, där information från onoterade aktiebolags årsredovisningar samlas in för bokslutsåret 2015.   Studiens resultat visar ett mycket svagt positivt samband mellan andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter och total risk- respektive finansiell risk samt rörelserisk. Följaktligen förkastas studiens samtliga nollhypoteser. Sambanden mellan beroende och oberoende variabel är dock mycket svaga, vilket gör att resultaten skiljer sig från en svensk studie på svenska noterade aktiebolag av Adams och Funk (2012). Studien lämnar bidraget att andel kvinnliga styrelseledamöter inte har någon betydande inverkan på total risk i svenska onoterade aktiebolag.   Denna studie undersöker endast ett bokslutsår. Förslag till vidare forskning är därmed att undersöka en längre tidsperiod för att således jämföra flera bokslutsår med varandra. Studien finner att kontrollvariabeln, bolagets ålder, har störst inverkan i samtliga regressioner och ytterligare förslag till vidare forskning inom området är därmed att undersöka sambandet mellan bolagets ålder med de olika riskmåtten. / The aim of this study is to examine a possible correlation between the proportion of women on corporate boards and firm risk in an unlisted Swedish corporation. Recent studies have focused on listed companies, and whether there is a correlation between the proportion of women on corporate boards and financial risk respectively business risk. These two measures of risk together defines as firm risk. How women effect firm risk is therefore by interest to investigate further. This study is computed with a positivistic approach through statistical tests and analysis to discover an eventual correlation between the proportion of women on corporate boards and firm risk in an unlisted Swedish corporation. All empirical data is collected from the database Retriever The results of this study show that the proportion of women on corporate boards correlates with the firm, financial- and business risk correlates in Swedish unlisted corporations. Whether the results actually show a greater impact in practice can be further discussed. The contribution of this study is therefore that the gender diversification does not impact the firm risk in Swedish unlisted corporations. For future studies we suggest to do more research on how the time aspect impact the relation between women on corporate boards and firm risk. As a suggestion, the age of the corporations can be examined, since this factor had the greatest impact on the risk measures.

No / This paper seeks to contribute to the existing business strategy and the environment literature by examining the effect of governance structures on environmental performance within a unique context of improving environmental governance, policies, regulations and management. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which corporate board gender diversity, including the proportion, age and level of education of female directors, affect environmental performance of Chinese publicly listed corporations. Using one of the largest Chinese datasets to-date, consisting of a sample of 383 listed A-shares from 2011 to 2015 (i.e., observations of 1,674), our findings are three-fold. First, we find that the proportion and age of female directors have a positive effect on the overall corporate environmental performance. Second, our findings indicate that the proportion and age of female directors also have a positive effect on the three individual environmental performance components, namely environmental (i) strategy, (ii) implementation and (iii) disclosure, respectively. Finally, and by contrast, we do not find any evidence that suggests that the level of education of female directors has any impact on environmental performance, neither the overall environmental performance measure nor its individual components. Our findings have important implication for regulators and policy-makers. Our evidence is robust to controlling for alternative measures, other governance and firm-level control variables, and possible endogeneities. We interpret our findings within a multi-theoretical framework that draws insights from agency, legitimacy, neo-institutional, resource dependence, stakeholder, and tokenism theoretical perspectives.