In yesterday's class we discussed the issue of women in businesses, in particular in family firms. This lead to the consequence that I started thinking a bit more about women in business occupying management roles.
The issue of gender in the work life is highly discussed, some argue a female quota is needed others argue against. This quota in business signifies that a certain amount of jobs, also containing positions such as CEO, go to women. The governments of France, Spain, Norway and Germany just decided to impose quotas for women on boards. They argue that equality is one of the basic human rights and they want to manifest this in society.
According to a survey of the Financial News, companies that have management roles given half half to men and women are more profitable than those having more men occupying management roles.
However quite often it is not that easy for women to balance their jobs, a successful career, their families and to bear up against a male dominated environment at work. An environment that is characterized by men taking risks and conducting highly speculative business decisions that lead worst case to a financial crisis.
In particular with the last argument the article makes I don't agree. As Ed yesterday in class said women tend to take even riskier decisions in business than men.
Regarding the female quota I was always totally against it and I still am. For me imposing such a law and forcing companies to hire women just to fulfill the requirement of such a quota is pointless. Companies should be encouraged to hire the best qualified and most suitable candidate and they should be allowed to operate freely.
A couple of years ago the issue of the female quota already came up and at this time the German chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out against the female quota. Now only a couple of years later she gives her viewpoint up and agrees to a compromise.
What do you think about a female quota? Do you support is or are you against and why?
Please feel free to comment and criticize my post.
Cheers,
Isabell
Please see my blog post posted right after this. I criticised your post. :)
ReplyDeletethank you for this interesting post, Isabell. I feel that even though in a perfect world this quota is quite pointless, sometimes it can really be imposed and help talented women become top-managers. For example, Russian companies are not gender balanced, even though a lot of women work there; however, they are most often in positions of accountants, and rarely you can meet a woman that is presented on the board. Our family friend was forced to leave her place as the CEO because she had a serious conflict with her male colleague. That is why I'm rather in support of quota.
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