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Who Runs the Firm? A Long-Term Analysis of Gender Inequality on Swiss Corporate Boards

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

STEPHANIE GINALSKI
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Abstract

The recent arrival of women on corporate boards has been extensively discussed in the literature. However, most of the studies focus on very recent times. This article analyzes the presence of women on the corporate boards of the largest firms in Switzerland across the past hundred years. It shows that until the beginning of the 1970s, the very few women sitting on the boardrooms belonged to the families owning the firms. Two main factors contributed then to the progressive opening of the corporate elites to women. First, the extending in 1971 of “universal suffrage” to women led to a feminization of the political elites, and women with a political profile entered the boardrooms of firms in the distribution and retailing sector. Second, the increasing globalization of the economy at the end of the twentieth century contributed to weaken the cohesion of the very male and Swiss corporate elite. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the presence of women remained low in international comparison, and they were still hitting the “glass ceiling” regarding the top positions in the firm.

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Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 183 - 211
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

This contribution takes place in a larger collective research on Swiss elites that started ten years ago and owes a lot to my colleagues at the Swiss Elites Observatory (Obelis). They have contributed both to gathering empirical data and to stimulating the thinking behind this article. I am also grateful to Alix Heiniger, Rahel Kunz, and Céline Naef for their very useful comments on earlier versions of the article.

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Göransson,  Anita. “Gender and Property Rights: Capital, Kin, and Owner Influence in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Sweden.” Business History, 35, no. 2 (1993): 11–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heemskerk, Eelke, and Fennema, Meindert. “Women on Board: Female Board Membership as a Form of Elite Democratization.” Enterprise & Society, 15 (June 2014): 252–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heemskerk, Eelke, and Schnyder, Gerhard. “Small States, International Pressures, and Interlocking Directorates: The Cases of Switzerland and the Netherlands.” European Management Review, 5 (Spring 2008): 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoel, Marit. “The Quota Story: Five Years of Change in Norway.” In Women on Corporate Boards of Directors, edited by Vinnicombe, Susan, Singh, Val, Burke, Ronald R., Bilimoria, Diana, and Huse, Morten, 79-87. Cheltenham, UK: Elgar, 2008.Google Scholar
Jianakoplos, Nancy A., and Bernasek, Alexandra. “Are Women More Risk Averse?” Economic Inquiry, 36 (October 1998): 620–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwolek-Folland, Angel. “Gender and Business History.” Enterprise & Society, 2 (March 2001): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagrave, Rose-Marie. “Une émancipation sous tutelle. Éducation et travail des femmes au XXe siècle.” In Histoire des femmes en occident, edited by Duby, Georges and Perrot, Michelle, vol. 5, Le XXe siècle, edited by Thébaud, Françoise, 581–623. Paris: Perrin, 2002.Google Scholar
Landrieux-Kartochian, Sophie. “Femmes et performance des entreprises, l’émergence d’une nouvelle problématique.” Travail et Emploi, 102 (April–June 2005): 11–20.Google Scholar
Lazonick, William, and O’Sullivan, Mary. “Maximizing Shareholder Value: A New Ideology for Corporate Governance.” Economy and Society, 29 (February 2000): 13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, Isabelle, Ginalski, Stéphanie, and David, Thomas. “Le recrutement des hauts dirigeants d’entreprises suisses (1910–1980).” Le Mouvement Social, 266, no. 1 (2019): 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltby, Josephine, and Rutterford, Janette. “‘She Possessed Her Own Fortune’: Women Investors from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Early Twentieth Century.” Business History, 48, no. 2 (2006): 220–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazbouri, Malik, and Pavillon, Monique. “La dot et l’hypothèque.” Traverse. Zeitschrift für Geschichte/Revue d’histoire, 2, no. 2 (1995): 78–96.Google Scholar
Niederle, Muriel, and Vesterlund, Lise. “Do Women Shy away from Competition? Do Men Compete too Much?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122 (August 2007): 1067–1101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Therese, Nordlund Edvinsson. “Standing in the Shadow of the Corporation: Women’s Contribution to Swedish Family Business in the Early Twentieth Century.” Business History, 58, no. 4 (2016): 532–546.Google Scholar
Post, Corinne, and Byron, Kris. “Women on Boards and Firm Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis.” Academy of Management Journal, 58 (October 2015): 1546–1571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prügl, Elisabeth. “‘If Lehman Brothers Had Been Lehman Sisters…’: Gender and Myth in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis.” International Political Sociology 6 (March 2012): 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabier, Marion. “Élites.” In Dictionnaire. Genre et science politique, edited by Achin, Catherine and Bereni, Laure, 204–215. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2013.Google Scholar
Roberts, Adrienne. “Financial Crisis, Financial Firms… and Financial Feminism? The Rise of ‘Transnational Business Feminism’ and the Necessity of Marxist-Feminist IPE.” Socialist Studies/Études socialistes, 8 (Autumn 2012): 85–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruigrok, Winfried, and Greve, Peder. “The Rise of an International Market for Executives in Europe.” In Markets and Compensation for Executives in Europe, edited by Oxelheim, Lars and Wihlborg, Clas, 53–78. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group, 2008.Google Scholar
Ruigrok, Winfried, Peck, Simon, and Tacheva, Sabina. “Nationality and Gender Diversity on Swiss Corporate Boards.” Corporate Governance 15 (July 2007): 546–557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnyder, Gerhard, Lüpold, Martin, Mach, André, and David, Thomas. The Rise and Decline of the Swiss Company Network During the 20th Century. IEPI Working Paper. Lausanne: Institut d’Études Politiques et Internationales, 2005.Google Scholar
Schulz, Patricia. “Une combinaison délétère, ou la néfaste interaction pour les femmes du droit public et du droit privé, en droit suisse.” In La politique des droits. Citoyenneté et construction des genres aux 19e et 20e siècles, edited by Jost, Hans Ulrich, Pavillon, Monique, and Valloton, François, 129–144. Paris: Kimé, 1994.Google Scholar
Scott, Joan W. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review, 91 (December 1986): 1053–1075.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, . “La travailleuse.” In Histoire des femmes en occident, edited by Duby, Georges and Perrot, Michelle, vol. 4, Le XIXe siècle, edited by Fraisse, Geneviève and Perrot, Michèle, 479–531. Paris: Perrin, 2002.Google Scholar
Sealy, Ruth, Vinnicombe, Susan, and Singh, Val. “The Pipeline to the Board Finally Opens: Women’s Progress on FTSE 100 Boards in the UK.” In Women on Corporate Boards of Directors, edited by Vinnicombe, Susan, Singh, Val, Burke, Ronald R., Bilimoria, Diana, and Huse, Morten, 37–46. Cheltenham, UK: Elgar, 2008.Google Scholar
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