Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Developing the Business Case to Support the Enactment of Federal Legislation Mandating Gender-Based Quotas on the Board of Directors

Abstract

This thesis, in an effort to shatter the glass ceiling, attempted to develop the business case for gender diversity to support the enactment of federal legislation mandating gender-based quotas on the board of directors by looking at the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance for small and medium-sized corporations. After conducting two-step least squares (2SLS) regressions, the results revealed that gender diversity on the board of directors positively effects Return on Assets and negatively effects Tobin’s Q for small and medium-sized corporations. This led to the dejecting conclusion of an unestablished business case, maintaining federal legislation mandating female representation as a policy too progressive to pass.