Behind the Numbers: Status as a Process Loss in Boards Beyond Critical Mass and the Moderating role of Structure in Chairing Style

Using a comparative case study of boards from state-owned companies, this study uses board observation and semi-structured interviews to contribute a behavioural perspective to the Women on Boards (WoB) literature. It samples three boards beyond critical mass (with three or more women) (Kanter, 1977; Konrad, Kramer, and Erkut, 2008) to explore turn-taking behaviours of participation and collaboration within the board meeting through board processes (Forbes and Milliken, 1999). It finds that critical mass theory ignores important interactions between gender and job-related characteristics to underestimate social complexity in the boardroom. Behaviours such as interruption, silence and the need to collaborate supportively in order to be heard are used as evidence of the low status of women in some boards. This study interprets the presence of these behaviours as process loss based on gender, where it leads to unequal opportunity to speak in debate. In doing so it extends current WoB literature, finding that gender can operate as disparity (status) (Harrison and Klein, 2007) alongside established conceptualisations of gender as variety (information) and separation (perspective). This is the first time status as a theoretical explanation has been applied beyond critical mass, drawing on earlier critiques that demographic theories fail to take women’s social position into account. An inductive typology of Chairing style constructed around the concept of structure (Antino, Rico, and Thatcher, 2019) is invoked to show how structure can create certainty in boards where there are complex combinations of characteristics. It proposes implications for practice and further research around: the importance of understanding role and functional background alongside sex; how status can impact on board processes; the role of gender in cognitive conflict and the importance of Chairing style in creating gender inclusive boardrooms.