The downside of board diversity: Landscapes and challenges

Download This Article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstact

Promoting board diversity has had many supporters for years. Assuming that more minds would end up at better decisions, such would be an absolute win, however, there is a caveat, as with more diversity there is more potential for conflicts to arise as well. With the interlocking representations of current world multinational boards, their composition includes people from significantly different globe regions, which bring completely different worldviews into the boardroom. Therefore, the potential for misunderstandings, miscommunication, and ultimately board dynamic failures has never been higher. As this paradigm is unavailable, its context demands new solutions and perhaps new board leadership and training approaches. This article points towards possible research pathways for addressing such an important issue for making multinational boards more effective and efficient.

Keywords: Board Diversity, Board Dynamics, Conflict Management, Culture Models, Intercultural Communication

JEL Classification: D83, F51, G34, M14, O16

Received: 16.05.2024
Accepted: 23.05.2024

How to cite: Água, P. B., & Correia, A. (2024). The downside of board diversity: Landscapes and challenges. In Ž. Stankevičiūtė, A. Kostyuk, M. Venuti, & P. Ulrich (Eds.), Corporate governance: Research and advanced practices (pp. 44–52). Virtus Interpress. https://doi.org/10.22495/cgrapp7