Dr Patricia Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Management, Kent Business School, University of Kent comments on the following news item:
European Union postpones women quota on boards plan
In recent weeks there has been much newspaper coverage given to the issue of the EU plan (now delayed) to impose a 40% mandatory quota for women on the boards of listed companies by 2020. Those who are against quotas – and it would appear from newspaper coverage that they are in the majority – often cite the discriminatory nature of such quotas and the potential ‘harm’ that the perceived tokenism attached to such quotas will do to women as the main reasons why they should be avoided. In addition such arguments usually assert that promoting women on merit is preferable and that our focus should therefore be on ensuring that there is a ‘pipeline’ of competent and capable women, who are willing and available to take up board positions which match with their skills and capabilities. The dichotomy around which such arguments are built – discriminatory quota appointments on the one side versus appointments based on merit on the other – is based on the assumption that appointments made on merit are fair while those made according to quotas are unfair. However, such claims of the ‘fairness’ of merit based appointments are not supported by research.
This leads me to suggest that both appointment by merit and appointment by quota are unfair and while we are very happy to acknowledge the unfairness that attaches to quotas, we are less happy to acknowledge the unfairness that attaches to merit mainly because it has broad cultural appeal due to its association with equality and the maxim ‘may the best person win’. Thus the key difference between appointments based on quotas and appointments based on merit is not that one is fair and the other is not, rather it is that both are unfair but the unfairness that attaches to each of them impacts on different groups of people. Appointments based on merit are biased in favour of historically advantaged groups such as white men and often biased against historically disadvantaged groups such as women and ethnic minorities. Research (2010) on merit based appointment systems and merit based organizational cultures – rarely mentioned in newspaper reports – demonstrates how managers within organizations which emphasise merit tend to be biased in favour of men over equally performing women when translating performance evaluation into employment rewards. However despite this well established finding in the research literature, the (often unintended) unfairness built into meritocratic systems tends to be invisible as demonstrated by the lack of media comment about this aspect of meritocratic appointment systems.
In contrast quotas are biased in favour of historically disadvantaged groups such as women and ethnic minorities while being biased against historically advantaged groups such as white men and its bias is highly visible and is given significant ‘airplay’ by media outlets. Pointing out the unfairness in meritocratic approaches to board appointments is not to suggest that an emphasis on merit should be abandoned, rather it is to say that if we are going to argue about the value of quotas in comparison to merit based systems then we need to do so from a position which recognises the strengths and weaknesses of both.
Reference
Castilla, E.J. and Benard, S. (2010) The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations, Administrative Science Quarterly, 55, pp. 543-576.
Patricia recently spoke to to Dominic King on BBC radio Kent’s Drivetime show about female board quotas. Click here to listen to the interview.