#Black desk code

“Boards Risk Perpetuating the Status Quo” Such people appeared to serve as role models and to create an environment in which non-white-male directors felt psychologically safe speaking up. “That might boost your confidence to participate while also encouraging white male directors to act in accordance with their stated beliefs.” The participation bump was particularly strong when one of the Black or female directors had high-status leadership experience. “You’ve heard all about the importance of heterogeneity,” explains Texas A&M’s Leonard Bierman, a coauthor of the study. Imagine that you’re listening to your board make the case for why it needs another female or minority member. The process of recruiting a second member of an underrepresented group may also make a difference, the researchers say. This suggests that those directors felt a kinship-even if their race or gender differed-that helped them hold their own in the group. Second, boards with two or more Black or female directors experienced more-equal participation among members than boards with only one member of an underrepresented group. (High status had a minimal effect on the participation of white men, presumably, the researchers note, because as members of the majority group, they were less likely to feel insecure.) “High-prestige individuals seemed to have the confidence to speak up-and white men appeared to cede the floor when they did,” Tuggle says.

White female directors with such experience participated, on average, more than twice as much as their lower-status counterparts, while high-status Black male directors participated 150% more than theirs. First, those who had previously held a high-status role-such as CEO, dean or president of a university, general or admiral in the military, or state- or national-level political office-were much more likely than others to speak up. Two factors helped boost participation among Black and female directors. “But relative status matters even in a group of highfliers.” Boosting Participation “It’s difficult to imagine corporate directors being intimidated they are usually very successful and dynamic people,” says the University of Central Arkansas’s Christopher Tuggle, who led the study. “Even when a woman earns a seat at the table,” Dolan wrote in Fortune, “the men can put you in a soundproof booth.” It may also be that members of underrepresented groups felt insecure and censored themselves. They cite the experience of Liz Dolan, who resigned from the board of the action sports and apparel company Quiksilver in 2015 after learning she had been excluded from critical discussions. But anecdotal evidence suggests that white male members’ behavior often exerted a chilling effect. “Without the participation of underrepresented directors,” the researchers write, “the potential benefits of board diversity are lost.”īecause board transcripts are confidential, the analysis was solely quantitative and thus the researchers could not document why such directors were so reticent. The researchers continued tracking transcripts after the close of the study and saw the same results: Black and female members were still not speaking out. (The coding did not extend to other underrepresented groups.) Controlling for the differing sizes of corporate boards, each white man spoke, on average, for 11% of the total annual board meeting time, whereas each Black man spoke for just 4% and each woman just 8% of the time. This revealed, unsurprisingly, that women and Black directors typically held the floor much less than white men did.

#Black desk code

public companies to code the transcripts of every board meeting from 1994 to 2006 to determine the number of minutes each director spoke. The researchers worked with the auditors of 54 U.S.

A new study explores why and suggests conditions that can help. Yet little evidence has persuasively linked increased board diversity with improved firm outcomes. Such initiatives are laudable not only for reasons of fairness: Research shows that heterogeneity in groups boosts the quality of decision-making. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule requiring most companies on the Nasdaq exchange to have at least two directors from underrepresented groups-minority, female, or LGBTQ+-or to explain why they don’t. Diversity on corporate boards is an urgent priority, emphasized by company leaders and public policy agendas.