Woman on corporate boards in India: an analysis

Abstract

The paper primarily talks about how the mandatory requirement of having 1 women director which was brought about by the company Act 2013 and came into existence on April, 1 2014 has fared in India. The literature review talks about the relation of the gender diversity on board to company performance and other related aspects. There has been a lot of talk about Art 149, mandatory women director rule to be just a fact on letter and something which is not followed in spirit. The paper takes into account women diversity related data of NSE listed self-declaring companies. It has analysis on Nifty 500, Nifty 50 and overall all the companies registered on Indiaboards.com. The analysis of the data gives an insight on the profile, recruitment and presence of women in the boards. The suggestions are as per reports from research papers and analysis done from the data. There needs to be a policy level intervention and an organizational and individual level intervention as well. Overall the paper suggests that there is a long way to go in terms of increasing and sustaining gender diversity on boards.