Enterprise, Finance and Jobs for a New Humanity Morten Huse Professor of Organisation and Management, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo and Tor Vergata University, Rome President European Academy of Management Catalyst Europe Advisory Board Member

1. Morten Huse
Vicariate of Rome, Ministry of Education and LUMSA
Borgo Sant Angelo, Rome, 16. April 2012

2.  Morten Huse
 Professor of Organisation and Management, BI
Norwegian Business School, Oslo and Tor Vergata
University, Rome
 President European Academy of Management
 Catalyst Europe Advisory Board Member

3. Enhancing the role of women at
the top of the business is crucial at
this moment
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4. www.boardsandwine.net
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5.  Societal case arguments  Business case arguments
◦ Justice ◦ Diversity
◦ Democracy  Women different than men
◦ Participation ◦ Larger knowledge base
◦ Gender equality  More than 50% of the
◦ Conventions population are women
 Use of knowledge in a small
 UN
society
 Human Rights
 EU/EEA
◦ Customer knowledge
 Women are the main
 Individual case customers in several sectors
arguments ◦ Men are often too passive
◦ Individual
development/career
◦ Glass ceiling arguments
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6. The
Norwegian
Story
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7.  NORWAY – ONE OF THE MOST PROGRESSIVE
COUNTRIES
 Norway is considered one of the most progressive
countries with regards to increasing the number of
women on boards – thanks to it being an early
adopter of legislation to force companies to recruit
women to the boardroom.
Elizabeth Harrin (Financial Times, London)
 FEMINISTS: BOLDEST MOVE ANYWHERE
 To many feminists, this is the boldest move
anywhere to breach one of the most durable
barriers to gender equality
The Female Factor

8.  Women in the boardroom
 The wrong way to
promote women
 Mandatory quotas do
more harm than good.
 July 19th 2011
But firms should make
work more family-friendly
•Ruin the Norwegian Economy
•There are not enough qualified women

9. Law sanctions enforced
40%
Saving banks on
the stock exchange
Women Law ratified
networks
Percentage of Mentorship Data banks
women on boards programs and registers Deadline for law
in listed/publicly Arguments
tradeable Formal Law proposed
companies in
Norway 20% education
Law proposal
hearings
Seminars Research
10% 25% 40%
5%
1990 1996 2002 2008
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10. The parents
The
birthhelpers
The women
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11. Multi-board directors Multi-board directors 2010
2000
Women No women Independent
Mostly Professional
Independent (including the
“Golden Skirts”)
Men “Old boys network” Investors
Mostly “Gold Sacks”
Investors (Women have
replaced many multi-board
men)

12. Principle- and facts- oriented Pragmatic business-oriented golden
golden skirts skirts
Aspiring golden The analytics: “The young, smart The controllers: “The ambitious and
skirts (Less and clever – having fact on the pragmatic women – using the
experienced as fingertips, often having mentors” opportunities given by the law” (50
decision-makers) (around 40 years) years +)
Experienced golden The decision makers: “The iron The value creators: “The business
skirts (Experienced fists being used to fight – experienced - being board members
as decision-makers) experience from top level politics” before the gender-balance law” (55
(50 years +) years +)

13. Norway A snowball effect?
 Spain, France, Netherlands,
 Most business women at Italy, Belgium, Iceland, Finland
first in principal negative,
but after seeing the  Switzerland, Germany,
results in practice Denmark, Sweden, Portugal
positive
 New Zealand, Australia, UK,
USA
 China, Japan, Egypt, South
Africa, etc

14.  Our earlier published Our WOB Findings
research: 2. Defining value creation (vs. distribution?)
◦ Bilimoria and Huse 1997, 3. Board task differences (strategy, control, service?)
Huse and Solberg 2006
4. Deep level diversity (female, feminine, feminist?)
 Our recently published
5. Tokenism (competence and preparation?)
research
◦ Tacheva and Huse 2007, 6. Critical mass (adapting to culture?)
Huse 2008, Huse, Nielsen 7. Gender related dynamics (baking cakes?)
and Hagen 2009, Nielsen 8. Gender role stereotyping (the men?)
and Huse 2010a+b, Torchia,
9. Using diversity (leadership?)
Calabro and Huse 2010,
Torchia, Calabro, Huse and 10. Evolution of a new discourse (box ticking?)
Brogi 2010, Torchia, Calabro
and Huse 2011

15. Enterprise, Finance and Jobs for a New Humanity
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