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Disrupting the status-quo of organisational board composition to improve sustainability outcomes: reviewing the evidence
Citation
Beasy, K and Gale, F, Disrupting the status-quo of organisational board composition to improve sustainability outcomes: reviewing the evidence, Sustainability, 12, (4) Article 1505. ISSN 2071-1050 (2020) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2020 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract
Sustainability, conceptualised as the integration of economic, social and environmental
values, is the 21st century imperative that demands that governments, business and civil society
actors improve their existing performance, yet improvement has been highly fragmented and
unacceptably slow. One explanation for this is the lack of diversity on the boards of organisations
that perpetuates a narrow business, economic and legal mindset rather than the broader integrated
values approach that sustainability requires. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature
investigating how board diversity a ects the sustainability performance of organisations. Our review
uncovers evidence of relationships between various attributes of the diversity of board members
and sustainability performance, though over-reliance on quantitative methodologies of studies
reviewed means explanations for the observed associations are largely absent. Limited measures of
sustainability performance and narrow definitions of diversity, focused predominantly on gender,
were also found. Important implications from the study include the need for policy responses that
ensure boards are diversely composed. We identify that more qualitative investigations into the
influence of a broader range of types of board diversity on sustainability performance is needed,
along with studies that focus on public sector boards, and research that takes an intersectional
understanding of diversity.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | organisational boards, sustainability performance, diversity, gender |
| Research Division: | Human Society |
| Research Group: | Policy and administration |
| Research Field: | Environment policy |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards |
| Objective Group: | Environmental policy, legislation and standards |
| Objective Field: | Institutional arrangements |
| UTAS Author: | Beasy, K (Dr Kim Beasy) |
| UTAS Author: | Gale, F (Professor Fred Gale) |
| ID Code: | 137643 |
| Year Published: | 2020 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 3 |
| Deposited By: | Education |
| Deposited On: | 2020-02-25 |
| Last Modified: | 2021-08-25 |
| Downloads: | 23 View Download Statistics |
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