Professor Soo Minh Toh

Gender quotas work in 'tight' cultures

Ken McGuffin

Quotas probably won't get more women into the boardroom in places like the U.S. and Canada.

They have a better chance however in countries such as China or Germany where people place a higher value on obeying authority and conforming to cultural norms, say researchers at the U of T Mississauga and the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Their conclusions are published in the journal Organizational Dynamics and in a blog for the Harvard Business Review.

It all comes down to a culture's "tightness" or "looseness" -- the degree to which a culture maintains social norms, adheres to authority structures and tolerates deviations from them, say Professors Soo Min Toh and Geoffrey Leonardelli.  Global organizations seeking to expand their female leadership ranks need to understand which kind of culture they're operating in to take the right approach, the authors suggest.

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