Gender Equality and Policy Implementation in the Corporate World Making Democracy Work in Business

Gender Equality and Policy Implementation in the Corporate World takes a unique approach to the issue of gender equality in corporations in the 21st century. It examines the implementation of specific policies that seek to promote women's presence on corporate boards in 15 democracies in Western and Central Eastern Europe, North America, and Australasia through the lens of the Gender Equality Policy in Practice Approach. The thirteen empirically rich country chapters by leading country experts and two separate comparative chapter answer core questions. How were policies adopted and implemented? Did they achieve any degree of success that would allow for real and lasting equality? What were the politics of the pursuit of corporate gender equality across the 15 countries? What worked and did not work and why? What are the lessons to be drawn from these experiences? The findings of the book show that policy implementation does matter, but that in this last bastion of male domination, policies have had more success in increasing women's numbers over challenging gender-biased norms that block women of all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds from gaining real power on boards. The path-breaking study shows that the reasons for this slow change are highly complex and case specific, in the details of each policy mix. While progress has been slow in coming, it has still been made even in these challenging times. Future policy success, the book concludes, is in the hands of men and women willing to come forward to overcome these well entrenched obstacles.

1 - Introduction: Negotiating Gender Equality in the Corporate World?
2 - The Board Room as Terrain for Comparative Gender Policy Research
3 - Accommodating Gender through Self-regulation: A Limited Response for Equity on Boards in Australia
4 - Self-regulation Comes at a Cost: Closing-off Authoritative Policy for Gender Equality on Corporate Boards in the UK
5 - Avoiding Quotas at all Costs: How Self-Regulation Undermines Gender Transformation in Sweden
6 - Set to Fail? Scattered Regulation Leaves the Glass Ceiling “Unbroken” in the US
7 - Implementing Corporate Equality through Quebec Inc.: The Promise and Pitfalls of a Feminist Outlier in Canada
8 - Diffusing Equality Without Domestic Champions? Incremental Change and Window-dressing in Croatia and Serbia
9 - Designed for Failure? Advocating Equality Against Adversity in Hungary and Poland
10 - From Shockwave to Ripple? The Nuanced Impact of Corporate Quotas in Norway
11 - A "Success Story" Beyond Numbers? Business Resistance Trumps Timid Feminist Demands in France
12 - Opportunities for Equality in Times of Crisis: The Transformative Potential of Corporate Quotas in Belgium
13 - Early to Act, Late to Achieve: Poor Implementation Limits Transformative Change in Spain
14 - Mobilizing for Quotas Against all odds: The Long Road to Corporate Equality in Germany
15 - Implementing Paradox: A Conservative Gender Regime Limits the Transformative Potential of Quotas in Austria
16 - What Works and Why? The Politics of Corporate Gender Equality by the Numbers
17 - The Transformative Power of Public Policy: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Isabelle Engeli is Professor of Public Policy and Head of the Politics Department at the University of Exeter. She leads, with Amy Mazur, the Gender Equality Policy in Practice (GEPP) International Network. Her research appears in journals such as European Journal of Political Research, European Journal of Politics and Gender, Journal of European Public Policy, Regulation & Governance, Revue Française de Science Politics, and West European Politics. She is Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Political Research, and Founding Editor of the European Journal of Politics and Gender. She currently serves as the Vice-President of the International Public Policy Association and on the Advisory Board of the European Politics and Society Section of the APSA. Amy G. Mazur is CO Johnson Distinguished Professor in Political Science at Washington State University and Associate Researcher at LIEPP, Sciences Po Paris. Her recent books include: The OUP Handbook of French Politics (edited with Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman, 2015); The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research (with Dorothy McBride, Temple University Press, 2010). She is currently co convening, with Isabelle Engeli (Exeter University), the Gender Equality Policy in Practice Network (GEPP). She currently is Lead Editor at French Politics.