近年來女性雖然開始在各個領域嶄露頭角，但在職場上的發展仍經常遭遇阻礙。隨著「多元共融（Diversity & Inclusion）」成為現今企業的熱門話題，性別平等被視為職場多樣性很重要的一環，加上許多研究表示性別平等有益於企業績效，於是企業們開始提倡並制定相關政策，彭博甚至針對這個議題製作了性別平等指數（Gender Equality Index, GEI），以衡量企業在性別平等方面的成果和努力，並讓投資人在做決策時可以參考此指數，而本研究正是依據彭博的這項調查來分析，是否越注重性別平等的企業在績效表現方面就越好。 本研究從BoardEx中搜集自2014到2017年間有參與彭博GEI調查的101家北美企業的董事會資料，並利用華頓商學研究資料庫查詢企業的公開財務報表，檢驗代表性別平等程度的「GEI指數」，和代表董事會性別多元化的「女性董事比率」，對企業績效的影響。最後，研究結果顯示GEI指數和女性董事比率對於企業績效皆呈現非線性關係，意思是當GEI指數和女性董事比率上升到一定狀態後，他們對於企業績效的正面影響會開始減弱。另外研究發現，在性別平等程度較低的公司提升女性董事比例，或是在女性董事比例較低的公司提升性別平等，將分別強化董事會性別多元化和性別平等各自對於企業績效的正向影響。 ;In recent decades, women have begun to play important roles in many fields. However, women still encounter many obstacles and limitations in the workplace. As diversity and inclusion have become a hot topic in recent years, gender equality is being seen as an important part of workplace diversity. Several companies have started to put emphasis on gender equality and formulate related policies. Bloomberg even launched an index named “Gender Equality Index” specifically to measure companies’ efforts and accomplishments on gender equality; it can also be used as a decision-making tool for investors.
The study gathers board data of 101 companies in North America that participated in the survey of Bloomberg GEI from 2014 to 2017 from BoardEx. It aimed to find out whether GEI, which represents gender equality of the workplace—and the female director’s ratio which represents board gender diversity—can positively affect companies’ performances. The result shows that once GEI and female directors’ ratio rise to a certain state, both of their positive impacts on corporate performance will be reduced. Another finding is that increasing the number of female directors in an unequally-gendered workplace—or enhancing gender equality in a company that has few female directors—can respectively strengthen the positive effect of board gender diversity and gender equality on corporate performance.
