IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbr/cbrwps/wp420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Equality Law and the Limits of the 'Business Case' for addressing Gender Inequalities

Author

Listed:
  • McLaughlin, C.
  • Deakin. S.

Abstract

The 'business case' for gender equality rests on the claim that organisations can improve their competitiveness through improved diversity management, in particular by reducing turnover and training costs and minimising reputational and litigation risks arising from potentially discriminatory behaviour. It is also argued that through the mechanism of socially responsible investment (SRI), shareholders can put pressure on the management of listed companies to take gender issues more seriously. We assess these claims through an empirical study which draws on interviews with institutional investors engaged in SRI and with managers in a range of organisations in both the private and public sector. We find that organisations are increasingly responding to the argument that persistent gender inequalities represent a form of mismanagement of human resources, with negative implications for the delivery of services, in the public sector, and for the efficiency of the firm, in the private sector. Shareholder engagement, however, has so far had very little impact in this area. We discuss regulatory reforms, including tighter rules on firm-level disclosure of gender policies and practices, which could address these issues.

Suggested Citation

  • McLaughlin, C. & Deakin. S., 2011. "Equality Law and the Limits of the 'Business Case' for addressing Gender Inequalities," Working Papers wp420, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp420
    Note: PRO-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbrwp420/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Waring & Tony Edwards, 2008. "Socially Responsible Investment: Explaining its Uneven Development and Human Resource Management Consequences," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 135-145, May.
    2. Grosser, Kate & Moon, Jeremy, 2008. "Developments in company reporting on workplace gender equality?," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 179-198.
    3. Trevor Colling & Linda Dickens, 1998. "Selling the Case for Gender Equality: Deregulation and Equality Bargaining," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 389-411, September.
    4. Kate Grosser & Jeremy Moon, 2008. "Developments in company reporting on workplace gender equality?," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 179-198, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kate Grosser & Jeremy Moon, 2019. "CSR and Feminist Organization Studies: Towards an Integrated Theorization for the Analysis of Gender Issues," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 321-342, March.
    2. Barone, Elisabetta & Ranamagar, Nathan & Solomon, Jill F., 2013. "A Habermasian model of stakeholder (non)engagement and corporate (ir)responsibility reporting," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 163-181.
    3. Walaa Wahid ElKelish*, 2023. "Accounting for Corporate Human Rights: Literature Review and Future Insights," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 33(2), pages 203-226, June.
    4. Marcelle Colares Oliveira & Manuel Salgueiro Rodrigues Júnior & Sérgio Henrique De Oliveira Lima & George Alberto De Freitas, 2018. "The Influence of the Characteristics of the National Business System in the Disclosure of Gender-Related Corporate Social Responsibility Practices," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-17, April.
    5. Ionuț Viorel Herghiligiu & Ioan-Bogdan Robu & Marinela Istrate & Maria Grosu & Camelia Cătălina Mihalciuc & Adrian Vilcu, 2023. "Sustainable Corporate Performance Based on Audit Report Influence: An Empirical Approach through Financial Transparency and Gender Equality Dimensions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-28, September.
    6. Austin, Chelsea Rae & Bobek, Donna D. & Harris, Ling L., 2021. "Does information about gender pay matter to investors? An experimental investigation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. Carmen‐Pilar Martí‐Ballester, 2023. "Mutual funds and gender equality in portfolio firms: Toward the sustainable development goals," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 905-926, March.
    8. Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez & Valentina Minutiello & Patrizia Tettamanzi, 2022. "Gender disclosure: The impact of peer behaviour and the firm's equality policies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(2), pages 385-405, March.
    9. Rita, Vilkė & Živilė, Gedminaitė-Raudonė, 2020. "The Principles of Agribusiness Social Responsibility From Farmer’s Point of View: Lithuanian Case," Rural Areas and Development, European Rural Development Network (ERDN), vol. 17.
    10. Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez & Marcelle Colares Oliveira & Jennifer Martínez‐Ferrero, 2020. "Female directors and gender issues reporting: The impact of stakeholder engagement at country level," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 369-382, January.
    11. Kate Grosser, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Multi-Stakeholder Governance: Pluralism, Feminist Perspectives and Women’s NGOs," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 65-81, August.
    12. Leire Gartzia, 2021. "Gender Equality in Business Action: A Multi-Agent Change Management Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-29, May.
    13. Gray, Rob & Gray, Sue, 2011. "Accountability and human rights: A tentative exploration and a commentary," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(8), pages 781-789.
    14. Utoft, Ea Høg, 2020. "Exploring linkages between organisational culture and gender equality work—An ethnography of a multinational engineering company," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, 2019. "CSR as Gendered Neocoloniality in the Global South," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 851-864, December.
    16. Deakin, S. & McLaughlin, C. & Chai, D.H., 2011. "Gender Inequality and Reflexive Law: The Potential of different regulatory Mechanisms for making Employment Rights effective," Working Papers wp426, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    17. Linda Dickens, 2007. "The Road is Long: Thirty Years of Equality Legislation in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 463-494, September.
    18. Zattoni, Alessandro & Witt, Michael A. & Judge, William Q. & Talaulicar, Till & Chen, Jean Jinghan & Lewellyn, Krista & Hu, Helen Wei & Gabrielsson, Jonas & Rivas, Jose Luis & Puffer, Sheila & Shukla,, 2017. "Does board independence influence financial performance in IPO firms? The moderating role of the national business system," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(5), pages 628-639.
    19. Eskantar, Marianna & Zopounidis, Constantin & Doumpos, Michalis & Galariotis, Emilios & Guesmi, Khaled, 2024. "Navigating ESG complexity: An in-depth analysis of sustainability criteria, frameworks, and impact assessment," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    20. Deborah Dean, 2015. "Deviant typicality: gender equality issues in a trade union that should be different from others," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 37-53, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender equality; diversity management; socially responsible investment; discrimination law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ruth Newman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.