Introduction
As women and minorities are continuing
to become a larger proportion of the
workforce in comparison to white males, corporations
are beginning to experience significant
changes in pools of potential candidates
as high-ranking officer positions (Holton,
1995; Burke, 1997; Conyon and Mallin, 1997;
Burke and Nelson, 2002). The diversification
of these resource pools may impact the
composition of boards of directors and
subsequently corporate governance (Shrader
et al. 1997). While diversity within boards of
directors may be a highly visible effort to
demonstrate an absence of discrimination,
it is unclear if diversity within boards of
directors has an impact on organisational
performance. The diversity literature suggests
diversity adversely impacts group dynamics,
but improves group decision-making.
However, this research has not been conducted
with boards of directors nor has it
investigated the impact of board of director
diversity on organisational performance. Our
research is designed to investigate the impact