As business cooperations lack women in their higher level seats, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business is working to change this dilemma.
An article published in Knowledge@Wharton back in October on gender diversity in business management, Limited Seating: Mixed Results on Efforts to Include More Women at the Corporate Board Table, cites some disappointing statistics. Only 15 female CEOs appear on the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest corporations. Women hold only 16 percent of all board positions within those companies. More than 10 percent of the list have no women on their boards at all.
In a time when ladies make up half of our workforce and more women are becoming powerful political players, these numbers are shocking. Fortunately, companies seem to be realizing the need for greater diversity and the unique skills that women bring to the boardroom. In the article, Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard said, “when women are on a team, the collective intelligence of that team is greater because people treat each other better. People are politer and more respectful, which leads to better outcomes. When women are on a team, the environment changes. There’s less of the old boys club.” And, of course, a wider variety of backgrounds and perspectives always lends to broader thinking and better decision-making.
Better news came from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. With 45 percent female students, Wharton’s MBA program boasts the highest percentage of female students among top schools. For all full-time programs in the country, that number hovers around an average of 30 percent. Wharton’s professors think this increasing equality in education will eventually feed more women into the business world and bump up those boardroom ratios – which could be key in turning around the “poor governance” that brought on the current financial crisis.
“I have seen a lot of gender diversity in my classrooms, which is great,” said Katherine Milkman, an Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management at Wharton. “I do think that disadvantages still remain for women in the business world – any minority group faces increased challenges with networking and relating to colleagues, not to mention the possibility of discrimination. However, it seems that things are getting better all the time.”
Penn also fosters gender diversity with student groups like Wharton Women, which helps female undergraduate students begin careers in business by building networks of personal and professional support. Hopefully, we’ll see more of these women calling the shots at big corporations soon, bringing the business world up to speed in the 21st century.