Women on Board, Regulations and Reality

Abstract

An attempt made in this paper to understand the credibility of Corporate Governance regulations relating to mandatory women representation in Indian companies. It considered recent regulatory norms introduced by SEBI on women representation. Reviews of articles and data from NSE 50 companies are taken for the completion of this paper. From the analysis of top 50 companies listed with NSE, using simple percentage analysis and review based analysis it is found that there is relatively poor representation of women in executive ranks in corporations. After the implementation of Sec 149 of Companies Act 2013 there is a drastic change in the women representation. It is found that in many companies’ female appointments are made to satisfy the legal provisions in companies act, 2013. This study shows that single women on board and tokenism of female members in board prevent the effective functioning of the women directors in board. This study concluded with valuable recommendations to improve the norms, that leads to more effective implementation of gender diversity on corporate boards in India.