By Michelle Hendelman

At the recent Women’s Forum Global Meeting in Deauville, France, the percentage of women on European boards was an important topic of conversation among the 30+ CEOs gathered at the annual conference. Now in its 8th year, this forum brings together CEOs from across the globe to have a candid discussion about the issues surrounding women’s career advancement.

In conjunction with the forum, EY (formerly Ernst & Young) presented what they believe to be five critical factors to influence change in the boardroom as featured in their report, “Time for Change: Recruiting for Europe’s Boards.”

“Our research suggests that European boards lack diversity as they are locked into a small pool of talent and are constrained by the fundamental requirements for board positions. Recruitment processes used to fill Europe’s boardrooms need to change to broaden the base of experience and skills on company boards,” says Julie Teigland, EY’s EMEIA Accounts Leader.

This begs the question whether or not CEOs and corporate boards are genuinely concerned with increasing the number of women because of the well-documented business benefits or if these efforts are geared toward fulfilling increasingly stringent mandates from The European Commission.

While some countries like Norway have already imposed gender quotas for corporate boards, The European Commission is pushing that four out of every ten non-executive directors of large publicly listed companies in Europe be female by 2020. However, each European country affected by these mandates is progressing at different rates as acceptance levels of women in senior level positions are certainly not uniform. Finland, for example, reported in 2012 that women comprise 22 percent of listed companies’ board members, whereas Italy, France, and the UK have experienced slightly less progress.

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By Hadley Catalano (Boston)

It’s a balancing act for women in leadership positions. Cautiously steadying the professional tightrope between exhibiting likeable behaviors and leading effectively.

According to Marianne Cooper, sociologist at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and lead researcher for Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, this is the double bind.

She explained, “When in positions of leadership women are expected to be decisive and forceful, assertive and confident, but because they are women, are also expected to be nice, friendly, and supportive.”

So how are women maintaining equilibrium between the expectations of acceptable personality and successful managerial actions? Are top-female execs choosing between being liked and being respected in order to maintain their post at the helm?

Childhood Theories

The convention of the “labyrinth” – the term social psychologist, Alice Eagly, uses to define obstacles that women face en-route to the top– was first constructed in early in childhood. Parents, elders, and schoolteachers introduced both boys and girls to their first expected gender roles, stereotypes that have guided our society for generations. Particularly for women, this was when the tightrope was first pulled taut – defining the line of acceptable, appropriate feminine behavior.

“Women get that idea at a young age when they are reprimanded for ‘crossing the line,’ like when a girl is outspoken or aggressive she is called ‘bossy’,” Cooper said. “Today women are keenly aware that people react negatively to them when they are highly competent and assertive.”

Cooper added, “If a woman acts competitively, if she demonstrates decisive and forceful leadership, she is deviating from the social script that dictates how she ‘should’ behave,” She explained, noting that women face an even steeper bias in male-dominated industries.

So how are women working through the stereotypical character profiling and finding tactical balance to lead effectively?

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

How do hiring managers choose candidates for jobs at top firms? According to Northwestern University research, it’s all about personality.

Based on analysis of the hiring practices of elite professional services firms, Lauren A. Rivera, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, found that interviewers give far more weight to “fit” than they do to technical skills or academic achievements. After all, hiring managers reason, most Wall Street firms accept entry-level applications mainly from graduating students of Ivy League universities. For the most part, even being able to apply to these top jobs implies a baseline level of competence, and whatever they don’t know, they’ll pick up through a comprehensive analyst or associate training program at the firm.

For applicants, that means getting a job offer is less dependent upon proving smarts or skills, as it is convincing an interviewer they’ll fit in at the company. For interviewers, it means they’ll be sure the person they hire can get along well with team members, who they’ll be spending about 80 hours per week with anyway. This should help boost retention, employee engagement, and all the other good things that create a productive workforce, right?

In her article, “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms,” Rivera says she is not so sure. At some point, all this focus on cultural homogeneity is bound to produce a groupthink culture, one which keeps valuable voices out and ushers in people who may not be as qualified for the job.

Most companies claim they want real diversity in their offices, but Rivera’s study shows that diversity of thought may not falling by the wayside.

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By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

In a new working paper, “Are Women More Attracted to Cooperation than Men?,” authors Peter J. Kuhn and Marie-Claire Villeval explore the work environments in which women are most likely to thrive. According to the authors, women perform better than men in work situations that emphasize team based collaboration rather than individual competition.

They reference previous research that suggests some women typically avoid competitive work environments for two primary reasons: a simple dislike of competition and typically lower confidence in their abilities than men. Given these findings, Kuhn and Villeval take a look at how collaborative team environments affect women’s performance as well as their self-assessment of their own abilities.

The Experiment

Kuhn and Villeval build on research conducted by Niederle and Vesterlund in 2007 in which a worker could choose between receiving individual pay based on their own performance and a situation where their reward depends negatively on the performance of their team. What is interesting about Kuhn and Villeval’s study is that it is the first experiment of its kind to present subjects with two simple options. That is working in a situation where the subject’s reward is based solely on their own performance and a situation where the subject’s reward is based on the performance of their team.

The authors explain, “Our objective is to understand gender differences in selection into work environments where incentives for cooperation versus competition can be implicit features of the employment contract, or are deeply ingrained in corporate cultures.”

By shedding light on the reasons why women might be more attracted to collaboration, and as a result be productive and effective team members, the authors offer insight into how changes in corporate culture and HR policy can increase a female friendly corporate environment and culture.

Does fostering a collaborative environment really make the workplace more female-friendly? Furthermore, is it accurate to say that women display more confidence in their abilities when working as a team member?

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