Harvard Business Review
have just emailed me the story that is
being run by most major French publications about how women on management
teams have fared better than men in the current financial crisis.
Elle
,
Le Monde
and many other publications have presented
CERAM
Professor Michel Ferrary’s research,
which shows that companies with more women on
their management teams have done better. I thought it particularly interesting
in light of the debate about Helen Zille’s decision to pick an all-male team
for her provincial cabinet.
Professor Ferrary’s research paper “When Gender Diversity Protects Stock
Prices from the Crash” examines the relationship between women in leadership
positions and the drop in share price since the beginning of the year.
Put simply, less women equals a greater drop in share price and likewise the
more men the greater the drop in value. Professor Ferrary examined companies
in the CAC40 and found that “firms with a highly feminised management like
LVMH (56% female managers), Sanofi (44.8%) have gone down less than the CAC40.
While stocks of more male-managed firms like Alcatel-Lucent (8.68% women),
Renault (21.77% women) have fallen more than the CAC40”.
Contrary to the research, Zille believes her team can deliver. In her
letter
to the
Argus
she has chosen to attack the ANC only in areas where the DA is
strong, women at party leadership level. She has not as yet addressed the
diversity issue in her team.
Ferrary’s research says: “Several gender studies have pointed out that women
behave and manage in a different way to men. They tend to avoid risk and to
focus more on a long-term perspective. A larger proportion of female managers
balances the risk-taking behaviour of their male colleagues.”
This points to diversity being the key to managing risk. The only question
which remains in my mind is whether public service delivery is somehow
different to managing a business.