As someone who likes to write from time to time on women on corporate boards, I sometimes feel like I am writing about last year’s “news.”  In other words, not much seems to sound new.  So, I am always in search of a novel problem to explore or a different vantage point through which fresh insights can be obtained.

My most recent contribution in this regard is a symposium piece that looks at women on boards through the lens of the literature on crowds–whether they be mad or wise.  Boards can be crowds (albeit small ones), based on prevailing definitions.  Moreover, crowd behaviors can be gendered.  So, it seemed like a reasonable idea.

The fruit of this labor is my most recent article, Women in the Crowd of Corporate Directors: Following, Walking Alone, and Meaningfully Contributing.  The substantive portion of the abstract is as follows:

With the thought that new perspectives often can be helpful in addressing long-standing unresolved questions, this article approaches an analysis of women’s roles on corporate boards of directors from the standpoint of crowd theory. Crowd theory — in reality, a group of theories — explains the behavior of people in crowds. Specifically, this article describes theories of the crowd from social psychology and applies them to the literature on female corporate directors, looking at the effects on both women as crowd members and boards as decision-making crowds.

Unfortunately, while the crowd theory perspective provides some insights, they are not altogether conclusive. Specifically, while women may bring distinct ideas and experience to boards of directors when they become board members, crowd theory does not provide a clear picture of the nature or extent of those differences or how they may contribute to productive, efficient board decision making. More work still is needed in this area. However, existing research does indicate that women encourage productive board development activities — activities that may include, for example, introducing the board to structures and policies that may promote board wisdom. This is a useful insight that should be further explored.

This is, as the abstract indicates, a preliminary exploratory piece.  But it does at least represent a change from the current literature in the field, which focuses on (among other things) the search for an alternative to gender quotas (see, e.g., here and here).

I had the opportunity to present the paper at William & Mary a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately, the school was closed that morning as a result of a snow storm the day before.  Since I was already in Williamsburg (but could not stay to present the paper later in the day), current and incoming editors of the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law invited me to deliver the paper to them over breakfast in a local restaurant.  The impromptu forum turned out to be a lovely way to discuss the paper with the students–a number of whom had read the piece carefully and had interesting questions and observations.  I hope that some of you enjoy the article as much as those students did!