Gendering Merit: Challenging the Discourse of Merit in Canadian Corporate Disclosures Related to Women on Boards

À propos de
l'événement

Séminaire conjoint
École de comptabilité et Chaire de recherche en gouvernance de sociétés

Conférencière:
Merridee Bujaki, Carleton University, Ottawa

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There has been significant pressure on corporations to increase the representation of women on boards. In Ontario, Canada this led to legislation (effective for years ending on or after December 31, 2014) requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose their policy related to increasing the gender diversity of their boards. Alternatively, if the corporations do not have a policy, they need to explain why they do not. We find that since the diversity legislation was introduced there has been very little change in the percentage of women on boards of directors (for example an increase from 7.9% to 9.7% for our sample of non-TSX60 firms and from 22.2% to 25.5% for TSX60 firms from December 2014 to December 2017). To better understand why the new requirement has had such a minimal impact, we examine the first ever diversity disclosures of TSX60 companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, in comparison to a random sample of smaller (non-TSX60) firms. We find many companies report their policy is to appoint ʺon meritʺ, rather than to have a formal policy with respect to diversity and that the focus on merit is particularly pronounced for smaller TSX firms. In this paper we examine/expose the gendered nature of the merit argument and look in detail at the rhetoric used to discuss merit. We take an explicitly critical stance towards the construction of ʺmeritʺ and argue that until the gendered roots of the language of merit-based policies are challenged, corporations will have little incentive to challenge the status quo and engage with the substantive issues of diversity.