Women’s participation in global executive positions

This chapter examines several aspects of women’s participation in top executive positions in global firms. In the business sector, which comprises a significant proportion of the private sector, quota systems have not been incorporated into either national or international legislation. The inclusion of women in top executive positions thus depends on the decisions of a few powerful people, usually men, at the top of the firm’s hierarchy. Women’s advancement in the business milieu also depends on individual women’s personal resources, which help them weave their way to the top. Studies show that women in top positions contribute to the economic and social success of their firms (Annis, 2008; McKinsey & Company, 2010; Coleman, 2011). Even so, it is apparent that the costs and benefits of globalization are distributed unevenly among different groups within the executive world as they are outside it. They are distributed unevenly especially across gender but also within each gender, according to local cultures, personal skills, economic status, and firms’ policies. For some groups of women and men, globalization opens up new opportunities, but for others it denies the opportunity to take part in and advance to top positions in global firms. With the aid of the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) (Branisa et al., 2014), which measures underlying discrimination against women for over 100 countries, it was found that gender equality and the opportunities given to women in social institutions vary in different world regions.