Valberedning och tillsättning av styrelse enligt Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning: En studie av könsfördelning ur ett institutionellt perspektiv

Sammanfattning: Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors. We interpret the observed evolution from an institutional standpoint and find that formal pressure following from the code and informal pressure exerted on the companies by cultural expectations in society favors an increased share of female members, while normative pressure and mimetic processes can contribute in either direction with regard to the share of female members. We believe that it can be questioned whether the formalization of the nomination process will generate a noteworthy change in outcome regarding the gender balance between the nominated candidates.