What distinguishes women nonexecutive directors from executive directors?: individual, interpersonal, and organizational factors related to women's appointment to boards

Little is known about the factors that help women become company directors, with few research studies done. Studies from the United States (Catalyst, 1995a, 1995b), Britain (Holton, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c), Canada (Burke, 1995; Burke & Kurucz, 1998; Mitchell, 1984), and Australia (Rom/Ferry International, 1997) offer extensive and useful descriptions of women directors from frequencies of demographic, experiential, and organizational characteristics. However, the relative importance of factors is not assessed for appointment to boards, nor the importance of other factors, such as social processes. The aim of this study is to add to our understanding of women's appointments to boards by assessing the relative importance of a broader range of factors than previously examined, using an Australian sample. Women company directors in Australia hold only 4% of board positions (Korn/Ferry International, 1996, 1997). Boards of governance of Australian companies usually consist of a mixture of outsider directors, called nonexecutive directors, and a small number of senior executive staff from within the company itself, called executive directors (Korn/Ferry International, 1995). This study assesses the factors linked to women attaining nonexecutive as opposed to executive board status. Women nonexecutive directors are more freely selected (invited, elected) than women executive directors who are on the board often because they work for the company or are owners. Because there are so few top executive women, the choice of women executive directors in an individual company is limited to very few women, perhaps one or two. This comparison therefore provides an avenue for assessing the factors that help women to be freely chosen for boards (i.e., nonexecutive directors) rather than being on boards because they work for, or own, the company (i.e., executive directors). Hence, the aim of this study is to extend understanding of how women are appointed to boards in Australia by identifying distinguishing individual characteristics and situational factors with regard to nonexecutive compared to executive status. Studies of the correlates of women directors' board representation (Burke, 1995; Mattis, 1997; McGregor, 1997) have rarely examined situational factors or evaluated the relative importance of individual and situational factors (there are exceptions, Bilimoria & Piderit, 1994). The situational factors examined comprise both interpersonal and organizational factors.