Chapter 7: Chinese Women’s Representation on Corporate Boards of Directors and Institutional Interventions

Referring to Chinese women’s participation in the corporate world and their representation on boards of directors, a report issued by Grant Thornton (2014) indicated that women fill 21% of the positions on boards and 38% of the senior roles in China businesses, thereby leading the global average by 17 percentage points and ranking 9th among the 44 surveyed countries. At the same time, studies have shown a fairly encouraging picture of Chinese women’s actual performance in boardroom administration. Based on a sample of 1,291 publicly listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen, Hu (2012) investigated the relationship between female boardroom participation and corporate value and found a statistically significant positive correlation between the two variables. In addition, Li (2013), Tu and Tu (2014), and Wu and Sun (2014) demonstrated that women’s boardroom leadership has proven to be helpful in enhancing financial management, corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment, and other business aspects.