Companies With More Women Board Directors Experience Higher Financial Performance

catalyst.org

4 points·byosko··7 comments

I wonder how many startups have female board members?

"Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors, according to Catalyst's most recent report."

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Causation != Correlation

Maybe companies with higher financial performance tend to add more women board directors later on, as they grow in employees and revenue.

Or perhaps these two things are caused by a third.

This is who the study was done by:

"Catalyst is the leading nonprofit corporate membership research and advisory organization working globally with businesses and the professions to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women and business"

Does it seem like an independent study?

The numbers don't pass the smell test. Best bet: All-male boards represent brand-new companies. Only mature, profitable companies start to worry about installing "tokens".

counter-theory:

Having higher performance (or brighter outlook) allows companies to take on weaker performing women.

--yes that guess is politically incorrect

If the woman were weaker, then performance would not have improved after taking them on as board directors, as this report shows conclusively.

None of us have the stats to prove anything conclusively.

And this is the problem. If the article is going to make such big claims with such small evidence, then it seems worth evaluating some more obvious solutions first.

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