By Melissa J. Anderson

In a recent New York Times article, Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland echoed recent comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a consistent characteristic of extremists around the world – they try to control women.

Freeland points to a new study out of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management that suggests cultural styles may be to blame.

Based on an analysis of 32 countries, the study’s authors, Rotman professors Soo Min Toh and Geoffrey Leonardelli, propose two different types of cultures – “tight” and “loose.” Loose cultures (like Hungary, New Zealand, and Ukraine) don’t have extreme norms and tolerate change and deviation from tradition well. On the other hand, tight cultures (like Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey) tend to have a strong reaction to anything that is different from what they consider traditional or normative – and in many cases this means female leadership.

Toh explained, “Cultural tightness can prevent the emergence of women leaders because tighter cultures may make a society’s people more resistant to changing the traditionally-held practice that placed men in leadership roles.”

But that’s only one piece of the puzzle, she explains. After all, as generally homogeneous and socially conformative, Norway is also considered a “tight” culture – and it is often at the forefront of gender equality action.

The difference is that Norway actively promotes gender equality as a cultural norm, where everyone from political and corporate leaders to individual citizens are expected to participate. It is a society keenly focused on egalitarianism.

Leonardelli continued, “But when it comes to the emergence of women leaders, cultural tightness can have an advantage too. Cultural tightness may also be a helpful instrument, because in societies where men and women are treated equally, tightness could more strongly implement and sustain practices that encourage the emergence of women leaders.”

The study suggests that workplace cultures can be influenced by the tight/loose dichotomy as well. How is culture change looked upon at your company? How about in your industry at large? Are women merely tolerated or are they celebrated as leaders?

By Melissa J. Anderson

Last week, Catalyst announced the launch of its new social network for men, MARC (Men Advocating Real Change). Rather than excluding men from the diversity conversation, the organization realized it could get more traction around diversity by engaging men who can be champions of the movement.

Jeanine Prime, PhD, VP of Research at Catalyst, explained, “We’ve understood for far too long that in order to change workplaces we need to work with men who still hold the majority of positions of power. We see that men don’t fully appreciate what they have to gain from full equality.”

She added, “By joining MARC, men can take a stand publicly.”

Mike Otterman, Social Media Manager at Catalyst, said the network was the first of its kind. “There’s nothing like this that exists for the workplace,” he said, acknowledging that there are a few groups for men centered around domestic violence issues. “Once we identified the gap, we know we had to do this.”

Catalyst has been working on the network for about a year and a half, Otterman said, and the site provides a number of tools that can empower men to be part of the gender equality conversation. Prime said, “We’re getting really granular about what men can do.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

A new report by GMI Ratings has revealed that boards around the world are diversifying when it comes to gender, albeit at a crawling pace. The report authors, Kimberly Gladman, Ph.D., CFA, Director of Research and Risk Analytics and Michelle Lamb, Research Associate, studied the boards of over 4,300 companies in 45 countries globally. They found that this year, for the first time ever, at 10.5%, women hold more than one in ten board seats. Additionally, the number of companies with no women on their boards dropped to 39.8%.

According to the study, industrialized countries tend to have more women on boards than developing ones – although that’s not true in every case. For example, only 1.1% of Japanese board seats are held by women. At 4.5% and 7.0%, Italy and Singapore aren’t faring much better. On the other hand, 17.4% of board seats are held by women in South Africa, the highest scoring emerging market on GMI’s list.

In fact, there’s little homogeneity between countries on either list. The country with the highest level of female board participation is Norway at 36.3%, which GMI attributes to the country’s gender quotas. At 16.6% and 13.8%, France and Australia are the countries with the fastest rate of growth when it comes to female boardroom participation.

The researchers write, “This heterogeneity reflects the wide range of approaches countries are taking with respect to board diversity, involving legal requirements, corporate governance guidelines, listing exchange standards, mentoring programs, and other voluntary initiatives.”

Besides large scale initiatives, they explain, the way boards generally operate in each country will effect its gender make-up. “Countries where annual director elections are common, for example, might show change more quickly than those where the board stands for election only every fourth or fifth year.”

Here is a deeper look at three national strategies for getting more women on boards, and how they appear to be working.

By Melissa J. Anderson

Gender differences are discernable at the director level, according to a new study published in the journal Management Science.

The authors, Renée B. Adams, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, and Patricia Funk, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, surveyed almost 1,800 directors and CEOs of Swedish publicly traded firms. They found that the values of female directors differed from male directors – and women in the population at large.

Women who have reached the director level are more benevolent than their male peers and less power oriented – and both of these results were anticipated. What surprised the researchers is that female directors were more willing to take risks than their male peers – which runs contrary to the risk aversion of women in the general population.

They write: “Despite being in the same position as male directors, female directors in our sample are not indistinguishable from male directors in their priorities.”

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last Year, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding encouraged companies to pledge to increase the representation on their corporate boards significantly. She said it was companies’ “last chance” at self-regulation – and she meant it. The deadline for companies to commit to raising the percentage of women board directors was yesterday, and based on the unsatisfactory turnout (only 24 companies), Reding said, it may now be time for quotas.

The New York Times reported:

“France and other countries with legally binding quotas have made the most progress in placing women in top business positions, Ms. Reding said during an interview Friday in advance of her announcement. E.U.-wide rules were now needed, she said.

“‘Personally, I don’t like quotas,’ Ms. Reding said. ‘But I like what the quotas do. Quotas open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling.’ Countries that have quotas ‘bring the results,’ she said.”

Reding will begin meeting with governments, unions, companies, and other groups through the spring, and plan the details of the law enacting boardroom gender quotas across the EU. She told the Times, “Let all those who are concerned come in and say how we should proceed.”

By Robin Madell

Excitement about Facebook’s recent IPO filing quickly turned to anger for those concerned about diversity issues. As the company revealed that it will go public with no women on its board of directors, the irony was not lost on many in the media who noted that most of Facebook’s 800 million users are women. (See Bloomberg’s “No Women on Facebook Board Shows White Male Influence.”)

In fact, new research shows that contrary to stereotype, women are actually bigger purchasers than men of technology in general. A study conducted in late 2011 by Parks Associates found that women are more likely than men to buy smartphones, laptops, and tablets—three out of four categories that were surveyed in the consumer tech space.

Malli Gero, executive director of 2020 Women on Boards, expressed the view of many when he said in a recent MarketWatch article: “It’s outrageous that Facebook, representing a new genre of American company, could not find a single woman director. Does Mr. Zuckerman think that women are too busy socializing on line to sit on his board?”

Adding to the chorus of disappointed voices, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) registered its disapproval about Facebook’s board by sending a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The letter, from CalSTRS director of corporate governance Ann Sheehan, expressed that the company’s choice to exclude women from its board “is particularly glaring at a time when there is clear evidence that companies with diverse boards perform far better than the companies with more homogenous boards.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a new report by Thomson Reuters, increasing the percentage of women in the workplace can also drive up a company’s share prices.

Researchers at the company used its ASSET4 database on environmental, social and corporate governance matters to measure the impact of the glass ceiling on corporate performance. They found that the glass ceiling does indeed continue to exist, and, according to their report on the topic, “Companies that are ahead of their peers when breaking through the glass ceiling tend to have share prices that outperform, particularly in tough market conditions.”

Written by André Chanavat, Manager of Commercial Support for environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) at Thomson Reuters, the study, “Women in the Workplace” shows that making a concerted effort to improve gender diversity within a company does pay off – not just for women already within the company’s workforce, but for the company’s long term growth.

By Melissa J. Anderson

Tuesday the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology released its latest report on getting more women into the technology workplace. The report combines best practices from a number of top technology companies on recruiting and retaining women, as well as suggestions on how companies of any size can implement them.

Denise Gammal, PhD, Director of Corporate Partnerships at the Institute, explained, “Last year when we first debuted our top companies of the year award — IBM was the winner — we held a workshop to discuss best practices. And through the year, we’ve increasingly had companies ask us what they can do to hire more talented women.”

Companies are actively seeking more women in order to stay competitive, Gammal noted. “The research shows that diversity is important to innovation. It’s hard to develop products you want to market to half the world if half the world isn’t represented in the development of those products.”

And some are going above and beyond to stay on top. This year’s Top Company for Technical Women award, released along with the study, went to American Express. Jerri Barrett, Vice President for Marketing at ABI, said, “This is a company that has achieved over 30% technical women.”

Gammal continued, “And it’s at every level of the pipeline, which is an impressive accomplishment.” She added that the industry norm is around 20 percent women at the entry level , and only three to five percent at the very top.

The report, “Solutions to Recruit Technical Women” is the first in a series of papers discussing tested methods to improve the gender ratio in the technology industry. “Our goal really is to come up with an actionable set of recommendations,” Gammal said. “Any company — no matter their size or resources – will find solutions they can implement.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

In many companies, efforts to convince management to dedicate resources toward the advancement and retention of women continue to fall on deaf ears. Decades of effort have gone into conveying the point that women are just as valuable as men – yet a misunderstanding of “value” often causes people to miss the point of gender diversity.

To many people, “equal value” means “sameness.” They think, if men and women are the same, then why should we expend so much effort increasing our numbers of women when they will contribute in the same way as men?

Men and women are of equal value, but whether by social conditioning or biological construction, they aren’t the same. Studies show that, on average, women think through problems differently than men, are motivated differently than men, and build relationships differently than men.

Gender diversity means that companies have the benefit of a multitude of viewpoints and ways of solving problems and a wealth of critical insight to draw from as they approach 21^st century complexity in a diverse, global marketplace.

But this is the problem that diversity advocates face – a misunderstanding of the value of diversity that leads many to believe that diversity is nothing more than a numbers game designed to annoy people with more important work to do. And this is why Barbara Annis developed the concept of Gender Intelligence two decades ago.

“I was really looking at the concept of gender equality, and how to advance and retain women – but that mindset is really a numbers game. I didn’t approach how men change their mindset for equality.”

She continued, “Especially in finance and technology, companies were saying ‘we’ve got one women or we’ve got five women,’ but they weren’t saying ‘we need their perspective.’”