Mestrado Bolonha em FinançasThe lack of women representation on boards has recently become an important issue that needs to be addressed due to the benefits generated by gender diversity in boards’ structure.
As a result of increased interest in this topic, academic investigations have arisen and, more recently, increasing regulatory pressure has emerged on the percentage of women in top management positions. In Portugal, in 2017, Law nº 62/2017, known as the “Gender Quotas Law”, was released. It aimed a more balanced representation of women and men in management bodies by imposing a minimum of 33% of the least represented gender in management bodies.
At this time, in Portugal, this Law is only applied to companies listed on the stock exchange and, as this Law can most likely be adopted also for companies not listed on the stock exchange, this study purposes to understand the point of view of Portuguese non-listed companies, in this case specific of Portuguese Public Limited Companies, about the implementation of this Law, by inquiring them on different aspects inherent to Gender Quotas Law.
The results obtained revel that Portuguese Public Limited Companies agree on the conception of measures to promote gender equality, but not in the form of law. They also believe that women are competent enough to assume top management positions and that Gender Quotas Law are important for risk assessment in the decision-making process, for the company's overall performance, for financial reporting, for the company's growth and expansion and for the company's sustainability long-term.
It is essential to eliminate the injustices and gender inequalities that still exist in the labor market in Portugal and this Law is another step in that direction, hence it is important to understand the companies' point of view on this issue.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
