A “quota silo” or positive equality reach? The equality impact of gender quotas on corporate boards in Norway

• Author: Geraldine Healy,Hilde Fjellvær,Cathrine Seierstad,Eskil Sønju Le Bruyn Goldeng
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12288
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Published date: 01 January 2021

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A“quota silo”or positive equality reach?

The equality impact of gender quotas

on corporate boards in Norway

Cathrine Seierstad

1

| Geraldine Healy

2

|

Eskil Sønju Le Bruyn Goldeng

1

| Hilde Fjellvær

3

1

School of Business, Department of Business,

History and Social Sciences, University of

South-Eastern Norway, Norway

2

School of Business and Management, Queen

Mary University of London, London, UK

3

NTNU Business School, The Norwegian

University of Science and Technology

(NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

Correspondence

Cathrine Seierstad, School of Business,

Department of Business, History and Social

Sciences Campus Vestfold, University of

South-Eastern Norway, 3184 Borre, Norway

Email: Cathrine.seierstad@usn.no

Funding information

British Academy and the Society for the

Advancement of Management Studies

(SAMS), Grant/Award Number: SG140895

Abstract

10 years after its implementation, we explore the equality

reach of the 40% Norwegian gender quota regulation for

boards of public limited companies (PLCs) using a multi-

strategy approach (administrative data and interviews

with women directors) to capture interrelated macro and

meso changes. We employ Acker's (2006) inequality

regimes as our analytical framework, augmented by the

“equality reach”concept. We found strong compliance

with the 40% Quota. However, there was little evidence

of voluntary spillover to limited companies as envisaged

by Quota proponents; instead Quota coverage reduced

as some PLCs changed status to avoid the Quota require-

ment. We reveal that positive equality reach in one of the

most equal countries in the world is confined to a PLC

“quota silo,”which has shrunk over the life of the Quota.

Moreover, we suggest that PLC high levels of compliance

may be a defensive strategy seen as necessary in the reg-

ulatory/high sanction context of the Quota. We demon-

strate the need for further political and organisational

interventions to improve equality reach beyond the quota

silo. We also show the value of the equality reach

Received: 22 December 2017 Revised: 1 February 2020 Accepted: 15 February 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12288

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Authors. Human Resource Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hum Resour Manag J. 2021;31:165–186. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 165

concept for research on equality interventions and warn

of the dangers of an intervention leading to an

equality silo.

KEYWORDS

equality reach, gender quotas, inequality regimes, quota silo,

spillover, women on boards

Practitioner notes

What is currently known about the subject matter

•Gender quotas and/or targets for board positions are on the agenda globally.

•Norway is seen as an international leader in the field of gender quotas on company boards.

•The wider equality effects of gender quotas are under-researched.

What their paper adds to this

•We find that statutory quotas enforced by heavy sanctions for non-compliance are successful.

•Yet we show how the apparent success of the Norwegian quota has a narrow equality reach and in

practice leads to a silo of equality, a quota silo.

•We therefore expose the limitations of voluntary equality reach beyond what becomes a quota silo.

•We uncover the strategies that former PLCs use to avoid Quota compliance and thereby heavy penal-

ties for non-compliance.

•Theoretically we reveal the value of Acker's inequality regimes in the context of equality reach and

quotas.

The implications of study findings for practitioners

•From a policy perspective, we find that the Quota alone is insufficient to achieve its wider equality

objectives and argue for a statutory extension of the quota coverage coupled with a code of good

practice.

•Political strategies are necessary to reduce the capacity for quota avoidance.

•Our research findings are pertinent to human resource (HR) interventions to improve gender represen-

tation on company boards; we suggest setting up an advisory group with a remit for extending the regu-

latory reach of the Quota.

•There is a case for HR leaders to initiate bridges between the boards of companies and HR aiming at wider

equality reach.

•Both senior/CEO engagement and line-managers' accountability are crucial aspects of promoting gender

and diversity values to broaden the policy equality reach.

•More challenging, but equally essential, is the fostering of cultural change with a diversity focus on men-

toring, sponsoring and talent management initiatives.

166 SEIERSTAD ET AL.