The gender divide in the boardroom.

• Position: BOARD SURVEY

A majority of women in the boardroom believe that board diversity is key to restoring trust after the economic crisis, but only about half of men and women directors think their boards are doing a good job of advancing diversity, according to new research conducted by Heidrick & Struggles, WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD), and Dr. Boris Groysberg of the Harvard Business School. "There is a disconnect between what women directors feel must be done and what's actually happening in the boardroom," says Bonnie Gwin, managing partner of Heidrick & Struggles' North American Board of Directors Practice.

The survey of nearly 400 male and female board directors reveals striking differences in how men and women think about some of the biggest issues boards face today. "There is a significant gender divide in how men and women directors believe that boards should rebuild trust, as well as in rating how their boards are performing their fundamental responsibilities," says Susan Stautberg, co-founder and co-chair of WCD, a global community of women corporate directors.

The survey was conducted in the spring of 2010 by Dr. Groysberg, the Thomas S. Murphy Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and Deborah Bell, a research associate at the school. Respondents included 294 WCD members and 104 male directors of public companies.

Major Findings

Key differentiators between women and men board directors emerged in the areas of:

* How to rebuild trust in corporate boards after the shock of the financial crisis: Women seem to have much greater faith than men that increased boardroom diversity (65% of women vs. 35% of men), new regulations regarding executive compensation (45% vs. 22%) and proxy access (38% vs. 17%), and, especially, enhanced risk management systems (40% vs. 1%) would help restore trust. "This finding was one of the most revealing of the whole survey," says Gwin. "Interestingly, a clear majority of women directors expressed their feeling that more diversity in the boardroom would have a positive impact on rebuilding trust in boards. In addition, women directors preferred increased oversight, including a significant number who supported more regulation around executive compensation and enhancing proxy access. The women directors surveyed seem to express a feeling that the status quo has not worked and that they are open to more aggressive changes to rebuild stakeholder trust in boards."

* Boardroom diversity and...