Board diversity, an unsolvable problem? : A comprehensive study about Swedish and Danish listed companies on how board diversification affects a performance measure.

Abstract: On the surface, Sweden and Denmark are two similar countries, but behind the closed boardroom doors, things look different. These two countries have chosen different approaches to achieving their goals and the diversification within the boards differs markedly. As a result, the study tries to emphasize the differences, and see if it is possible to distinguish different gender effects. The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible effects of gender quotas in corporate governance and the impact women does have on reducing risk in a corporate governance context as well as their connection to R&D investments based on a performance measure of earnings per share. The study has chosen a deductive approach with regards to a cross-sectional design to make it possible to make various comparisons between the collected variables. The hypotheses of the study have been formulated with help of the theories: tokenism, institutional theory, social role theory, resource mobilization theory, resource-based theory, economic growth theory and the theory of the firm. The study finds gender effects for Denmark however cannot conclude if this is an effect of women on the board of directors or a tokenism problem arising due to males’ dominance causing women to be pushed away or men having a different risk appetite. For Sweden no gender effects can be concluded neither for the 3-year or the year-to-year results. This suggests that Swedish companies board of directors have achieved great synergy effects due to institutional and social pressures, however a tokenism problem cannot be ruled out.