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No. 35-2006 ICCSR Research Paper Series - ISSN 1479-5124
Best Practice Reporting on Gender Equality in the UK: Data, Drivers and Reporting Choices
Kate Grosser and Jeremy Moon
Research Paper Series
International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility ISSN 1479-5124
Editor: Jeremy Moon
International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
Nottingham University Business School Nottingham University
Jubilee Campus Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 115 951 4781 Fax: +44 (0)115 84 68074
Email [email protected] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/ICCSR
Best practice reporting on gender equality in the UK:
data, drivers and reporting choices
Kate Grosser and Jeremy Moon
Abstract
The paper’s twin purpose is to investigate and explain whether there
have been improvements in reporting on gender equality in the workplace
by UK best practice companies in the last decade.
It deploys two complementary methodologies for investigating twenty companies claiming best practice external communications on this issue
(a) quantitative analysis of gender impact reporting by companies (b) qualitative analysis, through interviews with company representatives, of
the drivers for reporting and reasons for non-disclosure of information internally available.
The main findings are that despite new and substantial forms of gender
impact reporting and widespread reporting of gender/diversity policies and programmes, reporting of gender impacts and performance is still
generally low and idiosyncratic. Secondly, there are significant instances of non-disclosure of gender information internally generated for other
purposes.
Companies explain their reporting decisions with reference to three sorts
of drivers: market, civil society and governmental, along with firm-specific organisational factors, poor performance and anxieties about the misuse
of data. General company reluctance to report more is associated with perceptions of a lack of demand for more detailed impact reporting and
the risks arising from a negative media climate.
The implications are that further impact reporting appears dependent on greater demand expressed through one of three main drivers of company
behaviour.
The originality of the paper lies in the deployment of the three driver analytical framework and the use of qualitative research methods to
explain quantitative findings on gender equality. Limitations in the
research may lie in the relatively small sample.
Keywords gender equality; reporting, UK, companies, CSR drivers
2
Authors
Jeremy Moon is the Director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) at the Nottingham University Business
School and a Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility.
Kate Grosser is a Visiting Fellow at ICCSR. She has worked with government, NGO’s, academia and the business community on a range of
economic, human rights and gender issues, Her recent research interests include the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, gender
equality and gender mainstreaming. She is currently working on a research project on corporate public reporting of equal opportunity for
women: a comparison of regulatory and voluntary frameworks in three countries (the UK, Australia and the USA), sponsored by the Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants.
Address for correspondence
(ICCSR), Nottingham University Business School, Jubilee Campus,
Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, United Kingdom.
Jeremy Moon Email: [email protected]
Kate Grosser Email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION[i]
Significant deficiencies have been found in UK corporate disclosure of
equal opportunities (Adams and Harte 1995; Benschop and Meihuizen
2002), particularly because it has mostly been confined to policies and
programmes with little disclosure of outcomes, impacts or performance
data (Adams and Harte 1998, 1999, TUC 2004). Opportunity Now {ON}
(2004) has noted improvements in business monitoring of their gender
equality programmes[ii] . This study investigates whether this increased
monitoring has been accompanied by improvements in reporting of
outcomes, impacts and performance relating to gender equality.
It does so by investigating companies that claim to be pioneering best
practice external communications on this issue. First, actual reports of
gender equality are analysed. Secondly, by applying the qualitative
approach (O’Dwyer 2002, 2003; Adams 2002; Larninga-Gonzalez 2001) of
interviews with managers, it investigates the nature and drivers of gender
equality reporting, and the reasons for non-/disclosure. Thirdly, it
evaluates the findings from these interviews through a framework
normally associated with explanations of corporate social responsibility
(CSR) which distinguishes three main drivers of company behaviour:
markets, civil society and government (Moon 2004a). It also addresses
organisational impediments to further reporting. We identify possibilities
for future action that relate to all three drivers and discuss the
2
implications for policy makers, NGOs, social accountants and others
interested in greater CSD on gender equality and diversity.
METHODOLOGY
The paper presents an analysis of twenty publicly listed companies which
benchmark their progress on gender equality with Opportunity Now[iii] and
which awarded themselves top marks for external communications in this
self-assessed benchmarking survey in 2002/3 or 2003/4.
Our selection of companies which monitor their gender equality progress
was designed to capture companies with reporting capacities (Adams and
Harte 1999:23, 2000:9) [iv]. Many companies included details of their ON
benchmarking scores in their public reporting as providing an authoritative
indication of their performance. Not all of our sample expressed full
satisfied with their monitoring systems thus far however, so systems
limitations could still explain some of the lack of disclosure[v] , In order
maximise the chances of interviewing those companies with the most
comprehensive monitoring systems interviews were held with detailed
reporters, all of whom claimed to have advanced montoring systems in
place. Secondly, our sample of reporting leaders allows reasonable
insights into possible future corporate behaviour because, apart from their
commitment to benchmarking progress towards gender equality, many of
our sample have won awards for gender equality or other human resource
policies.[vi]
3
As our original intention was to compare the financial sector
(characterised by high levels of female employment) with other sectors,
banks comprise over half the sample (n = 13). However, as no distinctive
findings appeared in either the analysis of reports or the interviews with
managers, sectoral issues do not feature in the paper. The other seven
companies sampled are in retail (2), transport (2), telecommunications
(1), energy (1) and manufacturing (1). The companies remain
anonymous as the ON benchmarking results are confidential and the
companies’ subsequent agreement to participate was on a confidential
basis.
The analysis is divided into two sections reflecting the respective
methodologies deployed. Quantitative analysis is based on investigation
of the twenty companies’ annual reports, CSR reports (2004) and websites
(2004-5). With reference to Gray’s (2001) discussion of how the
stakeholder model can be used to help define the categories used in social
accounting, our decisions about what information was relevant were
informed by academic literature, regulation for reporting in other
countries, voluntary guidance for UK human capital management
reporting, EOC and NGO comments on gendered human capital reporting,
and relevant private sector benchmarking initiatives[vii] (the questions
used in this data collection are available from the authors ). We searched
principally for performance data on: workplace profile; career
development, including recruitment, retention, promotion, training,
4
redundancy; equal pay; work-life balance; and aspects of governance and
general management related to gender issues.
Hackson and Milne (1996), Toms (2002) and Hasseldine et al (2005) have
developed qualitative variants on content analysis methodology. We have
adopted a simplified approach by differentiating two main categories. The
first includes rhetoric, declarative, policy, endeavour or intent, and
programme reporting, and the second includes targets, quantified (either
monetary or non-monetary) data, and descriptions of outcomes. We
record only the latter except where programme descriptions were deemed
to be unusual and therefore worthy of inclusion. This remains a broad
category and we give examples to illustrate the range of reporting found.
We included reporting of litigation/tribunal cases as performance
reporting.
Our findings are recorded as numbers/percentages of companies making
disclosures in any particular category (see Milne and Adler 1999). We did
not record how many times any particular piece of information is reported
or any other information about quantity of reporting. Nor did we confine
ourselves to information defined specifically as CSR, but searched more
broadly on websites, for example in recruitment sections. We confined our
research to the one question as to whether or not performance related
information was disclosed on each specific gender related issue.
5
Qualitative analysis is based on interviews with eleven representatives of
seven different companies from our sample.[viii] Companies were chosen
on the basis of the quality of their reporting. Interviewees were chosen
according to their responsibility for gender issues and /or reporting.[ix] As
reporting gender issues is often a point of functional overlap, in three
companies we interviewed more than one representative to ensure an
appropriate range of organisational perspectives. Interviews were by
telephone, lasting between 30 and 80 minutes[x].
The interviews took a semi-structured format around issues identified in
the CSD literature and in the quantitative analysis. These included: what
companies identify as key performance indicators of gender
equality/diversity; their reasons for reporting; target audiences and
drivers; criteria for what to report; reasons for not reporting; attitudes to
reporting bad news; feedback about reporting, and incentives for greater
disclosure. The analysis of these interviews is structured around the
questionnaire, although other issues that emerged in the interviews are
also considered.[xi]
Whereas CSD literature tends to focus on the regulated / non-regulated
dichotomy, our investigation of the reasons for non / reporting was
conducted in the framework of three drivers which have been used to
explain increased corporate social responsibility (CSR) among UK
companies: market, civil society and governmental (Moon 2004a). Market
drivers include pressure from consumers (e.g. niches, mass boycotts),
6
employees (to retain and attract employees), investors (ethical / social
responsible investment, mainstream investor interest), business
customers (through supply chain assurance) and competitors (where CSR
branding adds competitive edge). Civil society drivers, or social
regulation, refers to the more collective impacts on corporations than
those imposed by the sum of individual consumers. Non-government
organisations, in their adversarial and partnership modes, are drivers of
and self-appointed guardians of CSR norms, abetted by the media’s
appetite for stories of irresponsibility. Government can drive CSR without
recourse to ‘hard’ or coercive regulation. Soft regulation can encourage
improved reporting standards (e.g. amendments to the UK Pensions and
the Companies Acts). Governments encourage CSR through injunction, by
financial incentives and organisational resources (Moon 2004b). We
investigate the relative significance of these drivers in explaining
non/reporting of gender issues alongside organizational factors
ANALYSIS
The state of gender equality reporting by UK best practice companies
Table 1 indicates that those companies claiming to communicate well on
gender equality did indeed report publicly on gender issues, whether in
corporate values statements or in descriptions of policies, practices/
programmes and impacts. However, Table 2 indicates a great variety of
the workplace profile data reported.
7
Table 1
Sites of Reporting
% using this reporting method
% reporting gender equality by this method
Annual Report 100% 85%
Website 100% 100%
CSR Report 80% 100%
Table II
Gender in Workplace Profile
Number reporting Percentage reporting
Women as percentage of total workforce 14 70%
Women as percentage of management 15 75%
Trends in women as percentage of management 13 65% Targets for women as a percentage of management 11 55% Women as percentage of different grades 8 40% Trends in percentage of women by grade 9 45% Percentage of all staff working part-time/flexibly 9 45%
Women as part-time workers 1 5% Attracting women in to non-traditional jobs 8 40%
Women with other diversity indicators 1 5%
Note: Board members were named in Annual Reports meaning that it was possible to
ascertain the percentage of women on the Board in most company reporting, so we have
not included this as a separate reporting category.
While the Ethical Investment Research Service recommends that a ready
indicator of progress on gender equality is women as a percentage of the
total workforce and as compared to women as a percentage of
management (interview), 30% of our companies failed to report the
former and 25% the latter. Although two-thirds report trends relating to
women in management, and over half report targets for women in
8
management, only two fifths of companies reports differentiate for women
among managerial grades (e.g. senior, middle, branch)[xii]. Slightly more
report on the trends in the percentage of women among different grades
but fail to report the numbers.
ON’s monitoring checklist advises organisations to link their data by
gender to all other aspects of diversity (e.g. working patterns, hierarchical
level, disability, ethnicity etc (2004 p.49). Although 45% of companies
report some data on the percentage of all staff working part-time or
flexibly, only one reports such data by gender[xiii]. Only one company
reports the percentage of managers working part-time, but not by gender.
Only one reports the percentage of women workers from different ethnic
minority groups at different grades / levels, but this covers only its USA
workforce where legislation requires companies to report this information
to the EEOC.[xiv]
Turning to the reporting of gender equality in career development and
pay, Table 3 indicates relatively low scores. Only a third of our sample
report about recruitment by gender, for example.[xv]
Table III
Women's career development and pay
number reporting
percentage reporting
Recruitment 7 35%
Retention 2 10%
Promotion 9 45%
Training 3 15%
Redundancy 3 15%
Equal Pay Review 8 40%
Equal Pay Review findings 4 20%
9
Companies sometimes report broad targets (e.g. women as a percentage
of the workforce), but in other cases more detailed targets are given (e.g.
percentage of new recruits, new women graduates, women as modern
apprentices or recruits to technical jobs). Some reporting focused on
women in management (e.g. targets and performance for women short-
listed for senior management positions). Others report the aim of
attracting more working mothers, or lone parents (approximately 90% of
whom are women) in order to reflect their customer base, but do not
necessarily report outcomes.
Gendered data and targets for workforce retention are reported much less
frequently (despite a quarter of our sample reporting some data on overall
staff turnover / retention targets or rates). Only one company reports its
maternity return rate, and one reports on how it implements plans to
improve retention of women following exit interview analysis.
Turning to promotion, many companies’ data do not distinguish women
externally recruited from those advancing internally, so this figure may be
artificially high, but others do report the proportion of women promoted to
management. Some report new training, career restructuring, and
rethinking promotion criteria (e.g. relocation requirements) in traditionally
male-dominated jobs, in order to increase the promotion of women.
Although a number of companies report indicators of workforce training,
very few provide any gendered information. For those that do this is either
10
confined to training of women in senior roles (e.g. participation in
executive development) or women-only training courses (without
participation data). None report training of part-time workers (78% of
whom are women in the UK)[xvi]. However companies have begun to
report e-learning provision, with one reporting the percentage of (and
targets for) training provided via this flexibly accessed medium.
Reporting on redundancy by gender is rare, though some companies
report that this is monitored and that it is generally gender-neutral. One
reports that the percentage of female managers declined because of their
high take-up of redundancy packages.
Two fifths of companies report equal pay reviews. Only half of these
report any results. Box 1 illustrates the details reported.
Box 1
Examples of details relating to equal pay reported
Pay differentials between FT men & women; comparison with national pay gap Pay differentials between PT men and women Lowest starting salary Agreements with unions about equal pay reviews Explanations of pay gaps; programmes to address them (e.g. pay reviews at bottom of the pay scales, elimination of long service bonuses) Budget allocations to redress pay differentials Board support for equal pay reviews, integration of equal pay guidance into pay reviews Explanations of how the equal value issue is addressed Bonus payments inclusions in equal pay reviews Extension of equal pay reviews to race and disability issues
Some companies report problems encountered in addressing equal pay
(e.g. multiplicity of bonus schemes, decentralisation of individual
performance rewards). Overall, detailed reporting on equal pay reviews is
rare and generally in the form of a positive story.
11
Although more than one third of the pay gap is explained by women
combining care and paid employment (EOC, 2004), only a third of our
sample report performance on flexible working (Table 4).
Table IV
Work-life issues
Number reporting Percentage reporting
Flexible working performance 7 35%
Flexible working take-up by gender 0 0%
Childcare performance 3 15%
Childcare take-up by gender 0 0% Health and Safety with gender 3 15%
Box 2 illustrates the data reported. Although the ON benchmarking survey
asks whether companies regularly monitor the take-up of flexible working
schemes by gender, and by gender and hierarchical level, no sampled
company reports this data.
Box 2
Examples of flexible working performance/achievements data reported
Percentage of the workforce working flexibly (no gender) Savings associated with flexible working. Percentage of employee satisfaction with work-life balance or options, with trends (no gender breakdowns) Applications, and percentage granted, for flexible working arrangements (no gender breakdowns) Number of complaints under new legislation on the right to request flexible work. Awards for creating a flexible work structure, and rankings in graduate guides to best work-life balance employers Partnerships with NGOs to develop policy / assist staff access relevant external services Shortening of the working week for non-management grades Percentage of training provided via e-learning
Whilst many companies report their childcare and eldercare policies (e.g.
facilities, vouchers), few indicate outcomes or impacts. Exceptions report
the number of employees using facilities, cost savings to these employees,
12
the number of children participating in company programmes,
partnerships (e.g. with Employers for Carers) or NGO accreditation (e.g.
verifying company support for pregnant employees). None report the
take-up of childcare options by gender. One company reported its staff
percentage with parental responsibilities and another reported increased
take-up of paternity and unpaid parental leave. No data on parental leave
was reported by our sample.
Although health and safety policies increasingly extend to stress-related
illness (a leading cause of long-term absence), we found no overall
gendered data about health and safety in the workplace. One company
however reports support for women with post-natal depression and
another reports the number of employees screened in its breast cancer-
screening programme. A small number of companies report addressing
domestic violence as an issue with workplace implications (e.g. in the
context of collaboration with unions).
Table 5 indicates reporting on gender in governance and in broad
management systems. Over a third of companies report board level
responsibility and three quarters report on management accountability, for
gender/ equality/ diversity (Box 3).
13
Table V
Gender and Governance
Number reporting Percentage reporting
Board responsibility for Gender/Diversity 7 35%
Gender/Diversity management/accountability 15 75%
Gender/Diversity in management performance appraisal 3 15% Gender and diversity training performance 10 50%
Consultation of workforce re gender/diversity 11 55% Feedback by gender on employee surveys 1 5%
Litigation and/or tribunal cases 2 10%
Box 3
Examples of Reporting of Gender / Diversity Strategy
Publication of diversity strategy; description; implementation timetable Composition of equality/diversity committee; committee chair; description of its role; frequency of its reviews; to whom and how often the committee reports. Names of those responsible for strategy; roles of diversity champions/coordinators. How progress is measured (e.g. monitoring of workforce composition, employee opinion surveys) Union involvement in developing/ implementing strategy (less frequent).
Only 15% specifically report the inclusion of gender/ diversity in
management performance appraisals, though others report their inclusion
in general employee appraisal systems. Half report targets or
performance in equality/diversity training (e.g. mandatory diversity/
equality training for managers/new recruits/all staff) and some include the
number of employees undertaking programmes. None reported details of
training content or quality.
Over half of companies report consultation with employees about
gender/diversity and work-life balance via staff opinion surveys[xvii].
Companies targeting women and minorities often report trends in
employee satisfaction on diversity and work-life balance. Interestingly our
sample occasionally included negative findings (e.g. declining employee
14
satisfaction with ‘various aspects of workplace diversity’). Many report
staff survey response rates but not by gender. Only one company
reported that feedback is monitored according to different diversity
strands, and targets relating to this. None reported analysis of overall
staff surveys by gender.
Whilst we found extensive reporting of other human capital management
issues (e.g. absentees, length of service, employee share options
schemes) this included no gender breakdowns. Only two companies
reported litigation and tribunal cases but neither specified whether these
were on gender issues[xviii]. Several reported their results in the ON
benchmark, and one included its results in the impact section of the
benchmark specifically.
To sum up, we found considerable variety of reporting on impacts by best
practice companies not identified in previous studies. However this is
patchy, unsystematic, not easily compared and rarely constituted a
comprehensive coverage of gender workplace issues as called for by social
accountants, NGOs and legislation in other countries. This confirms Gray’s
(2001:13) finding that ‘Voluntary initiatives do not produce widespread,
consistent, and systematic practice’. Very little negative information was
revealed, confirming findings that voluntary reporting consists largely of
favourable managerial accounts (Adams and Harte 2000), however, apart
from litigation, negative information which was reported appeared when
reporting against clear targets had been established, or when a pattern of
15
reporting trends year on year was in place. Whilst the best reporting
linked targets, policies and programmes on the one hand and impacts on
the other, most reports did not. Gender breakdowns are still rare in
human capital reporting.
Explaining gender reporting among UK best practice companies
In order to explain these findings and to understand their organisational
context, we turn to the results of our qualitative analysis: interviews with
responsible managers.
What gets measured and why
In order to report, companies must first design their own measurement
systems. This is necessary for internal management and accountability,
tracking progress, benchmarking, and identifying areas for further action.
One interviewee described their monitoring system as having both top-
down and bottom-up input to maximise buy-in, to connect with overall HR
strategy, and to track progress and causality. Monitoring was also
explained as a means of winning the attention and support of senior
management, enabling regular, structured internal reporting to the Board,
and as resource in the event of discrimination cases. Some companies
also specified the need to report externally on human capital
management, including diversity ,(e.g. DTI’s 2003, 2004). Our interviews
revealed that most companies collect the information we had sought in
their reporting (and often much more) but choose not to publicise much of
it.
16
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are centrally important for effective tracking and reporting of
progress and impacts. Workplace profile data is considered key. Most
interviewees considered the percentage of women employees as
compared to the percentage of women in management, as used by EIRIS,
as necessary but not sufficient to monitor gender equality progress. Data
enabling the identification of trends were seen as vital:
‘what I’m looking for all the time is improvement. We should
instead ask “Can you show improvement?” I think that’s a
more sophisticated debate.’
Companies vary in the trends they monitor, tracking for example women’s
promotion in proportion to their population in feeder grade, or the
company overall, or ‘what the balance is moving through each particular
grade’. One interviewee noted that job segregation means that:
‘if you look at the numbers overall they are very misleading.
You have to look at them at different levels, and also within
different departments as well because obviously we have
some predominantly female areas and we have some very,
very male dominated areas like engineering.’
Several interviewees saw attention to a single indicator of female
representation (e.g. board membership) as misleading. One complained:
‘We went down that list this year, merely because other
boards have reduced in size and … [thereby got] … a better
17
percentage of women. And when we say to the people doing
that survey - hang on a minute we’ve got loads of women who
are in much more responsible jobs than being a board
member, paid higher salaries, with more responsibility - they
say “no we’re not interested in that”’[xix].
Although companies receive external encouragement to signal and report
against targets (e.g. by benchmarking organisations, rating agencies),
even committed managers can view targets as problematic:
‘the targets on the website are there because external people
want us to have [them]…internally we don’t bang on about
those targets very much at all, [rather] we report the facts,
and we expect our managers to react to [them]’.
‘This [avoidance of targets] means that we don’t get into…
positive discrimination. That’s a real concern because … if the
boss says you will get a 2% figure, guess where you end up?
And the mechanisms to deliver that then become aimed at
delivering (only) that.’
Many interviewees attested to the importance of a variety of indicators to
demonstrate improvements, because ‘Having the percentages doesn’t
mean it’s a good place to work and your colleagues are valued and
happy.’ Several mentioned that maternity return, post maternity
retention, and exit interviews explaining female attrition are important
success measures. Others talked in terms of measuring inputs:
‘I would be looking more at the training, education side… what
opportunities are given to staff to be able to work on a par
with each other, and flexible work.’
18
There was also agreement on the importance of trying to track cultural
change within the organisation but ‘that’s much more difficult to define’.
‘you want to …. look at whether women’s positions are part-
time, shift etc … because those are good indicators of how
good the policy is.’
Many felt that the take up of flexible working by gender and hierarchical
levels of the organisation was an important indicator of cultural change.
Others emphasised staff survey feedback about diversity, work-life
balance, job-satisfaction, feeling valued and being treated fairly.
‘what colleagues are …saying to us … is… an output that’s
going to be really critical in terms of how we’re doing. We’ve
already changed the timetable for that this year to reflect this
reporting in the future.’
Many companies monitored the results from these by gender and diversity
strand, and were thereby able to confirm for example that home-workers
were just as well engaged as other workers .
While it was not our research focus, nearly all interviewees’ companies
had rigorous internal reporting systems on equality and diversity.
‘[W]e report on everything… we’ve got a diversity leadership
group that the Chief- Exec chairs and he’s asked for diversity
KPIs within every division, and reporting to the Board on
whether the division/ business is green, red, or amber. I think
that reporting right up to the Board on a quarterly basis will
19
really keep the activity going at a lower level, and it’ll create a
lot of competition between the different divisions.’
‘[A]ll divisions have to report to the Chief Exec personally on
diversity twice a year and there’s nothing more powerful than
being sat in front of the Chief Exec for making things happen!’
A third company described reporting to unions in order to communicate
with workers internally, as well as reporting diversity statistics to the
Management Board on a monthly basis, and the main Board on a
quarterly basis.
Deciding what to report
Our interviews confirm that companies collect and analyse
gender/diversity information far in excess of what they publicly report.
Our main finding is that companies report on gender equality within
responses to key stakeholders/market drivers of investors and potential
employees, as both of these offer tangible company benefits. Other
market drivers specified in interviews were customers and clients. Civil
society drivers of the community and the general public, and government
drivers were also specified. Interviews revealed how companies try to
balance the needs of these different stakeholder groups in terms of the
length and content of their reporting:
‘Some of the public will say there’s too much information, and
reporting agencies will say, “we want more”, so what we’ve
tried to do is strike a balance between the two’.
20
When asked how they choose what to report, the emphasis was clear:
‘obviously good news, and progress rather than any negative
type things, and also what we’re going to do to get better.’
One interviewee noted that reporting on gender equality/diversity
supports the corporate responsibility agenda and ‘helps us to engage
customers and colleagues’.
Nonetheless, many interviewees emphasised that reporting should focus
on issues significant to the company:
‘we have to be careful that what we report on tells the story
as to what’s important to us… I’ve seen all sorts of scorecards
banded around, and yes, we will consider what’s in there, but
ultimately when we’re reporting it’s what’s material to us as a
business.’
Companies use external reporting guidelines reflecting market and civil
society drivers (e.g. benchmarks and questionnaires from ON, EIRIS,
Manifest, FTSE 4 Good,Business in the Community). However, the impact
of these drivers is subject to significant internal decision-making
processes. Our interviewees tell of submitting gender/diversity
information for inclusion in CSR and Annual Reports and that another
department, or inter-departmental committee decides on the final
content:
21
‘it (the CSR report) covers environmental, people-related and
business-related issues so a cross-section of people (including
from procurement and marketing) is represented on the
Steering Group and they all knit chunks of work and then it
gets pulled together by the Steering Group... I ( Head of
Diversity) draft the Diversity section for approval by the HR
Director; [it then goes] to the Steering Group and gets pulled
apart and then goes to the Leadership Team … and then to
the Board for approval and then it gets published.
‘[Our] report goes via Investor Relations and the Press Office
[and] although my team put out as much as we can … it gets
pared down because there are so many people vying for
space.’
Descriptions of governance and accountability systems are also reported
to provide confidence in a company’s commitment:
‘we’re trying to report … an infrastructure of control… as well
as having the organisational structure to manage our
business, how does our organisation structure (itself) to
manage equality and diversity for example – we’re trying to
give confidence around that.’
The two companies reporting on litigation and tribunal cases explained
this, first , because as the information is already public it is advantageous
to present the company interpretation of the issues and, secondly,
because it is advantageous to report bad news ‘when we started to turn it
into good news.’
22
Finally case studies are given to illustrate success, however most
interviewees agreed that on their own they are not adequate indicators of
overall impact.
Reasons for non disclosure on gender equality
Finally, we asked our interviewees why companies don’t report gender
equality impacts in more detail and what would lead them to report more.
Whereas a small number considered that their reporting adequately
reflected their progress, a variety of reasons were also given for not
reporting gender equality impacts in more detail. In short, the
interviewees suggest that that there is little market, civil society or
governmental demand for more detailed information, and they perceive
significant risks in revealing more than they need to:
‘I would question why you would report it (more information).
Who is really interested in a lot more information in depth on
these things?’
‘Who do you want me to report it (further information) to?…
we report on what we think we need to report, in terms of
what we are legally obliged to do. And we communicate our
good work through other members of the CBI group. We work
with the North East Centre for Diversity, Race for Opportunity.
We work with ON. We work with lots of different organisations
to get the word around about (the company) and we promote
what we do through our advertising and our publications, so
when you say reporting, I’m not quite sure where else I could
report to’.
23
Smaller companies also allude to time and money as reasons for not
reporting in more detail:
‘you’re driving forward with the business, and you do what
you need to. In some respects if you don’t need to do any
more – well that’s probably one of the most practical answers
I can give you.’
Others refered to clarity of reporting:
‘More sometimes becomes less. There is a criticism sometimes
that you throw in everything that you can possibly collect and
have all these metrics and then it all gets lost in terms of what
the priorities are’.
Finally, interviewees from companies new to this agenda stated that they
didn’t report actual data as they do not feel that this yet reflects the
investment they have made in the field. They expect to report more once
their statistics look better.
Market drivers
The general lack of demand for more detailed reporting is articulated
specifically in market terms:
‘Basically the shareholders and investors want to know the
demographics, they might be interested in part-time
(workers). They want to know how many people we’ve got at
different levels, and that’s about it’.
Our interviews established that investors, rating agencies and job
applicants sometimes request information on gender equality/diversity
24
beyond what is reported. Whilst this is generally provided, it isn’t
necessarily subsequently included in public reporting. Most investor
inquiries are limited to:
‘How many women have you got with you? How many women
in senior roles? And (sometimes) the trends.’[xx]
‘what would really make me report [more] on it is if I believed that
that would generate better brand value for the company and better
sales…The point where this becomes really useful to me is where it
impacts on share price… [investors are] not banging anyone’s door
down and they’re certainly not rewarding or punishing companies
that are good or bad at it (reporting)’.
One interviewee emphasised the power of the market as a driver of
gender equality in the workplace, arguing that if equal pay reviews
determined investments then companies would do them. But mostly
investors lack interest in further details, and
‘do not want us to spend time producing statistics for nothing.’
Another market disincentive to further reporting is avoiding providing
information to competitors. There is also the fear of misinterpretation:
‘What do measures such as profit per colleague actually show
you, when you’ve got quite different organisations? You can
say something but you can also manipulate the figures and
25
the information in relation to other companies in
benchmarking processes, and then people judge you against
others that have done it very differently.’
Several interviewees indicated that gender equality information was
produced with future employees in mind. Interestingly, Aurora Gender
Capital Management has recently filled this market niche by publishing
information about UK companies gender practices on its publicly
accessible ‘Where women want to work’ web-site. A quarter of our
sample provide information to this website often beyond what they include
in their own reports.
Turning to consumers, despite women making the majority of consumer
decisions (Kingsmill 2001 p.39), our interviewees did not see them driving
reporting on gender issues:
‘Do I believe that more women buy from a particular
organisation because it employs more women? I really don’t
see that.’
‘you sometimes get a [consumer] complaint it’s not normally
related to gender but more likely to be about disability.’
One interviewee explained that advertising is a better way of
communicating with consumers:
‘We’ve very consciously placed adverts with people from
ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, lots of family
26
situations, lots of females. This impacts on the market more
effectively than reporting how many women we employ’.
The supply chain was seen as a potential driver of reporting:
‘I was in a brewers yesterday, and the reason that they
wanted to talk to me about my equality and diversity plans
was because they knew they were rubbish at it … the National
Union of Students (NUS) had asked them for a breakdown of
their workforce and a breakdown of their supply chain. And
they supply tens of thousands of pounds worth of beer to the
NUS each year.’
Another commented that:
‘We’re certainly now starting to ask our suppliers, so it’s
moved one step down the line and that means that
organisations that are ignorant are now being asked the
questions by people they are bothered about, such as
businesses like us who are spending money with them.’
Clearly market drivers count, though their relative significance varied
within our sample.
Civil society drivers
Our companies are not driven by public pressure to report beyond their
policies, programmes and success stories regarding their gender equality
impacts:
‘it’s much more important for us internally to understand the
return from maternity rate, and things like that, and the right
to request (flexible working) application success rate. I feel
27
that we have to understand that because it helps us to
understand the demographics…How many members of the
general public want this information?’
Despite evidence that lobby groups and NGOs have been drivers of CSD
(e.g. Tilt 2004) we found little such evidence for gender reporting. Most
interviewees had never received requests for more information about their
gender equality impacts or consumer issues from women’s NGOs, though
one had been contacted by Fathers Direct. Another indicated that
requests from small NGOs would be unlikely to affect public reporting
even though he probably would supply the NGO with the information.
Although unions periodically request more information, they do not appear
to demand greater public disclosure.
Companies are wary of reporting in what they perceive as a potentially
critical media environment:
‘I might report a 99% return rate from maternity leave -
fantastic story, and I’ll get asked “why don’t the other one
percent come back then?” I’ll get 10, 15, 20, or 30 women to
talk about this and the newspapers will go and try to find the
two women that we’ve treated badly.’
‘…people know that we don’t have any women on our
leadership team, (but) if we put it out in black and white in a
report then all we’d get is more challenge about it – there’d be
a headline in the press saying ‘No woman at the top’ or
something like that! So…why draw attention to something if
it’s not perfect?’
28
Companies are reluctant to reveal that they are doing equal pay reviews
until they have resolved any problems found:
‘If you uncover something you’re going to have to put it right.
And that’s going to lead us in to changing all our incremental
pay scales, and we’re not quite ready to do that as a whole
piece of work yet’.
Another noted generally:
‘The problem is that people want to see progress in
sustainability year on year and sometimes when you’ve seen
massive progress one year you’re not going to see the same
progress the next year’.
This echoes O’Dwyer’s (2002) finding that CSD often made things worse
for companies in the spotlight. Not reporting avoids the problems
associated with being accountable.
Given the perceptions of little public demand for further reporting of
gender equality impacts, and of press hostility, our interviews suggest
that there would need to be significant changes in civil society drivers for
them to encourage greater company disclosure of gender equality
impacts.
29
Government drivers
Many interviewees alluded to the fact that although UK government
agencies (e.g. EOC, DTI) inquire about gender equality workplace issues
and invite companies to policy consultations, there is no legal obligation to
report. Several interviewees thought their companies may report more in
their USA public reports because they are legally required to report data
on women, including ethnic minority and grade information, to
government. One explained they report only global workforce data
except where national legislation determines otherwise (e.g. the USA,
Brazil, South Africa):thus although it conducts UK equal pay reviews it
does not report them.
A ‘softer’ government driver is the requirement to meet certain standards
in order to win public procurement contracts. One interviewee argued
that a good record on gender/diversity in the workplace assisted in
winning government contracts in the USA, and that this drove reporting
there. He said that while companies are increasingly asked for
information about their diversity policies when tendering for UK local
authority contracts and applying for training funding, they are not asked
for evidence of the impact of these. However, another said that she was
asked about diversity in
‘just about every tender with councils…. They ask for policies,
practices and statistics as well.’
30
She said however that this had not been a main driver of the company’s
project to improve human capital monitoring. Several interviewees
believed that the government did not adequately exploit its power to
increase market drivers for monitoring and reporting on gender and
diversity. One believed that if government raised reporting requirements
via the procurement process, this could raise market drivers through the
supply chain.
Organisational imperatives
Our interviews also revealed that the drivers for reporting impact on
companies in different ways, reflecting their own organisational
imperatives. One company was struggling to settle, let alone report, its
KPIs following a recent merger. Others indicated that they were not
approaching their inclusion and diversity strategies through a focus on
strand diversity:
‘I’m actually bothered that we are including as many people as
we can, rather than trying to run projects saying, lets get
three more people with disabilities employed in Edinburgh.’
‘the issue for me in the future is how you report on a more
integrated basis, rather than by issue or diversity strand. It’s
not just about gender equality… the issues about this are quite
similar to the issues on racial equality for example, and it’s
actually about getting cross-over about those sorts of things.
So whilst you’re always going to be aware of your
demographics, we’re finding a much greater integration of our
diversity work so that whilst we still have some parameters
31
under gender it becomes part of the integration for your
overall work.’[xxi]
An interviewee from a company headquartered in two countries explained
that despite collecting a lot of information about the UK workforce,
demographic targets are for global rather than national operations. This
means that despite considerable efforts to improve performance in flexible
working, childcare and equal pay, for example, these are not reported if
there are no global targets or national legislation.
Other organisational considerations for companies headquartered outside
the UK include the absence of a dedicated UK website, investor attention
to the company’s global operations, and the assumption that potential
employees expect to be internationally mobile so don’t require UK data.
The benefits of mandatory reporting or voluntary reporting
guidelines
In the light of these insights into the motivations for non/reporting of
gender issues we asked the interviewees their attitudes to mandatory
reporting and voluntary reporting guidelines. Several interviewees alluded
to the free-rider problem in reporting gender issues:
‘if everyone is not doing it then why should you do it?’
Several interviewees saw regulation as the key to more reporting,
accountability and progress on the issues:
32
‘if we were asked to do it, if there was some kind of
government influence which said you must do this, you must
do that, then we would without a doubt do it’.
‘personally I think it would be quite a good thing to have some
kind of mandatory reporting. I think it would sharpen up
people within organisations who produce the information. I
mean (our company) believes what it says – what we do is
above board, but I’m also quite certain that in other
organisations it’s not quite the same.’
One interviewee argued that reporting about gender equality impacts will
be determined by business priorities and interests, and any civil society
demand for further information should be driven by government:
‘If the government wants to get more women in the workforce
then it should just come out, say it, rattle the cages, give a
figure, say it expects all employers to be at least 15% women
or at least 25% women or whatever …They should be up front
and say it and ask you to report against it.’
This argument was applied to equal pay and the reporting thereof:
‘If the government wants equal pay for women… then it
shouldn’t ask us to do reviews. It should ask us to make pay
equal, and it should describe how it wants to define that pay is
equal, because nobody’s anywhere near that yet.’
So while this interviewee was against mandatory reporting from his
business perspective, he recognised a societal rationale for government to
be more proactive.
33
Others were simply against mandatory reporting: ‘…because it’s a
business cost’.
‘the problem with mandatory reporting is, well are you just
ticking a box? Anyone can do that, but the reporting has to
really link to genuine change within your industry so how do
you do that? How do you measure that? And that’s why you
need all the other things like benchmarks and employee
feedback, and all the genuine things rather than just reporting
for reporting’s sake.’
Following Adams and Harte’s observation that it is ‘possible that firms
need guidance on what to report and what form their disclosure should
take’ (1999:24) we found that even those opposed to mandatory
reporting were often interested in guidance on societal demands for
further gender equality information. One suggested:
‘…in all reporting on social responsibility areas there should be
standard templates for people to report against. Not
necessarily mandatory, but there should be a standard
template for say, the top 500 companies to report against,
when they put it in the annual report rather than going to the
extra expense …of producing a separate report of key data,
and there should be a definition of how to gather that key
data. Otherwise you will get 101 different interpretations and
different analysis of the figures.’
This point was illustrated in discussions on how to report flexible working
conditions given changing company practices:
34
‘Anybody can work from home in the company… We’re
changing from an hours based culture to an output based
culture… we’re no longer interested in whether they’re doing it
from nine till five. So that’s genuine flexible working but it’s
very subtle’.
‘The take up of flexible working hours… would be very difficult
to report, for example my section manager … can balance her
hours during a week, or a month, as she can pop to the shops
if she wants to and can pop to the gym at 10am when it is
empty, and she can come in late because of her child going to
school… But to actually report that individually would be very
difficult. We’ve just opened it up completely. It’s now a way
of life. Her life’s enriched in that way. She’s doing the work
that I want her to do. There’s no problem. It’s just the culture
now’.
For another company the expansion of part-time working was about
downsizing rather than gender policies. They were proud that some
managers now work shorter hours, but they had noticed that the take-up
of part-time and flexible working was ‘very highly female specific’ and saw
no benefit in reporting gender breakdowns. Another noted that the
company would not benefit from reporting gender breakdowns of flexible
working, but had a greater interest in reporting that the introduction of
flexible working had delivered costs savings, made the company more
environmentally friendly and had created increased markets for
communications equipment.
Discussion
35
Our analysis found that the best reporting practice has progressed to
include performance information, including workplace profile, progress in
recruiting, retaining and advancing women reported against clear targets;
detailed information about governance as it relates to gender equality;
and information about employee perceptions on this issue. The best
reporting includes scores achieved in the ON benchmark on gender
equality in the workplace, including the score obtained for impact.
However, despite identifying some excellent reporting practice, our study
reveals that this remains the exception rather than the rule, and that
many companies continue to communicate about policies and programmes
with little indication as to their impact. Without standard practices
company’s reporting is idiosyncratic making comparisons impossible.
Our interviews confirm Larrinaga-Gonzalez et al’s and Adams’ conclusions:
‘In the most proactive organizations identified, controlling the
scope of the environmental disturbance and constructing
public perception of corporate environmental performance,
take precedence over transparency.’(Larrinaga-Gonzalez et al
2001:234)
‘Concerns with image and demonstrating leadership in
reporting practices indicate that reporting in these companies
does not come from a concern to be accountable.’ (Adams
2002:235)
But our interviews also suggest that accountability in the provision of
information about gender issues is regarded in much more driver-specific
36
terms. It is clear that reporting strategies in large part reflect perceptions
of key drivers. These appear to be principally market drivers with more
modest impacts of civil society and governmental drivers. The reporting
deficits can also be explained with reference to these drivers, or their
absence, along with some firm specific organizational factors. Companies
were united in perceiving no market, civil society or government driver for
reporting gender issues in more detail.
‘If we could establish a particular interest, a particular
business need, an interested organisation that would require
the information for their purposes, we would report it, but at
the moment the feedback is that we’ve got enough in the
public domain to keep the majority of people happy, but I
mean the amount of information that we can put in the public
domain is almost unlimited if it’s not corporately sensitive’.
The literature on environmental disclosure has shown that once
investment has been made in improved processes and performance,
quality disclosure secures reputation advantages which cannot be
replicated by competitors offering up mere rhetoric (Hasseldine et al
2005). ‘Specified, quantifiable and verifiable information will be perceived
to be of higher quality’ (Toms 2002:261), and is difficult to replicate by
firms not genuinely committed to good practice. However ‘the process is
mediated by investor expectations’ (Toms 2002:263). Companies
committed to progress on gender equality perceive little advantage to
reporting such quality information, where market, social and
37
governmental drivers do not appear to be either demanding or rewarding
it.
With reference to Adams and McPhail’s conclusions that inadequate
reporting reflects companies’ ‘desire to avoid being held fully
accountable’(2004: 427), our findings also suggest a lack of concern with
accountability for it’s own sake. However, while some interviewees
admitted to non-disclosure due to poor performance, others discussed
positive monitoring and outcomes relating to employee opinions with
gender breakdowns, the details of which they believed no-one is
interested in. Lack of disclosure is partly premised on the view that
further reporting would either be accountable to no-one in particular, or
based on non-comparable data which can hide very different
organisational circumstances, as illustrated in the case of flexible working.
O’Dwyer (2002) argues that CSD becomes difficult to justify from a
societal perspective if it cannot be seen to promote the public as opposed
to the corporate (private) interest. However, attempts by government to
give guidance on best practice reporting on human capital issues have
focussed on helping companies to identify what is material for them to
report on in this field (e.g. DTI 2003, 2004) while noting that stakeholder
interests could be material in the long run (DTI 2004). Gray (2001:12)
suggests that both kinds of information are important in reporting. Adams
and Harte 1999, 2000, and Vogel (2005) note the important role of
38
government in reconciling corporate and public interests especially in the
form of soft, such a reporting, regulation.
When the question of accountability was raised, a number of our
interviewees favoured mandatory reporting, but more favoured voluntary
guidance. The reasons appear to be principally to create a level playing
field, to prompt the laggards into adopting better practices, and to clarify
the information requirements of civil society. Whilst several governments
require companies to report a variety of gender related information either
to the government or publicly[xxii], several studies found high degrees of
non-compliance (e.g. Adams and Harte (1999)) and little government
commitment to monitoring and compliance of such regulation (Day and
Woodward 2004).
A further option is voluntary guidance on what to report. Indeed Sullivan
(2005) has noted the importance of clear goals and performance criteria if
self-regulation is to lead to accountability. On gender issues this could
include the suggestion that reporting on HCM issues which are material to
the business, include gender breakdowns as a matter of course. It could
also give guidance on reporting other gender equality issues that are of
importance to civil society, such as equal pay, job segregation and flexible
working. Gray et al (1996) suggested reporting on compliance with
legislation as a way to progress accountability to society. For gender
issues this could include reporting on compliance with the Equal Pay Act
(1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975).
39
Civil society stakeholders (e.g. women’s NGOs, trade unions) are
important not just in defining reporting content, but also in ensuring that
‘what is reported is acted upon’ (Adams and Harte 2000:20)[xxiii] . Given
their weakness it may make sense for government to invest in capacity
building for civil society organisations working on gender equality in order
to improve engagement with business on these issues. This could make
for a better-informed process of gender mainstreaming in the field of CSR
and SRI benchmarks and systems (see Grosser and Moon 2005).
Conclusions
Our paper has responded to the challenge set by Adams and Harte:
‘Most studies … described the extent of disclosure, rather than
seeking to understand or explain (non) disclosure. Relatively
few studies have attempted to focus on a particular social
issue, or a particular firm, with a view to better understanding
the reasons for (non) disclosure.’ (1999:6)
This study includes an update on disclosure by best practice companies
and interviews with managers in companies which extensively monitor
progress on gender equality. It has addressed not only how progress was
measured, and reported internally, but also the reasons that so little of
the available data was reported publicly. Moreover, the interviews
enabled insights into the drivers that companies identify as significant for
gender equality reporting and the impact of certain organisational
imperatives.
40
Although we found developments in the range of gender issues reported,
we also confirmed a previous finding of a great disparity between
information collected, used internally and communicated to specific
stakeholders on the one hand, and that which gets reported on the other
(see Adams 2004; Adams and Harte 1999; Adams and McPhail 2004). We
thus confirm the conclusion that the ‘the current practice of very limited
reporting arises from a managerial choice’ (Adams and Harte 1999:53).
However we note similar findings relating to the reporting of human
capital more generally (Scarbrough and Elias 2002). Our interviews
provide a relatively nuanced interpretation of the factors behind these
choices. They reflect perceptions of the demand for reporting among a
range of drivers, firm-specific organisational factors, fears of the misuse
and misinterpretation of data as well as ‘poor equal opportunities
performance of firms’ (Adams and Harte 1999:24).
Our findings confirm (Adams et al’s) view that ‘disclosure is an
opportunity for firms to ‘tell their own story’ (1995:102). However the
view of legitimacy theory that firms ‘seek to portray themselves as
behaving in a socially acceptable manner, in return for recognition of their
right to exist’ (1995:103) does not appear to explain the reporting of
gender equality. Rather it is often aimed at attracting and satisfying
employees and meeting the information needs of rating agencies and
investors.
41
Our findings also echo Solomon and Lewis’s (2002) conclusion that
inadequate environmental disclosure within a voluntary reporting
framework is explained, among other things, by an absence both of
demand for information and a legal requirement, and by a fear of
exposure to competitors.
The importance of our approach is that the findings suggest that all three
drivers could usefully be addressed in a wider range of policy choices than
simply whether or not to regulate. The need for clear guidance for
voluntary reporting has emerged as an essential element of the self-
regulatory approach. This raises the question of capacity building among
gender-related NGOs to assist in developing and monitoring either a
mandatory or voluntary reporting regime. Finally the procurement process
was pinpointed by several interviewees. In forthcoming legislation for a
public sector duty to promote gender equality, the UK government
acknowledges the importance of public reporting in accountability systems
(WEU 2005:17) and specifically refers to the inclusion of gender equality
in procurement processes involving the private sector (WEU 2005:22).
Such legislation may offer new opportunities to stimulate greater private
sector reporting in the longer run[xxiv].
Finally, Toms (2002), notes that high quality disclosure may be limited in
that it applies only to limited aspects of company processes. While our
study focused on gender equality in reporting of information about
employees, the business literature has extended the debate to the
42
integration of gender/diversity into organisational culture (Opportunity
Now 2004a), and we also collected data about gender equality in CSR
reporting more broadly, relating to community, marketplace, and core
business impacts. Companies are only just beginning to address these
wider gender impacts and this is an area for further study.
i We would like to thank Opportunity Now for help with access to our sample companies,
and all our interviewees for their time and input. We would also like to thank The
Employers Forum on Disability for assistance with methodology, and Dave Owen and
Marcus Milne for comments relating to this research. ii Monitoring has particularly improved on training, development, appraisal and pay, and
also redeployment and redundancy. Improvements have also been made in monitoring of
employee feedback of their perception of pay equality, although the numbers of
employers who believe that they are doing this effectively remains low at 44%. iii Opportunity Now is a business-led organisation with about 350 members from the
private, public and education sectors aiming to realise the full potential of women at all
levels and in all sectors of the workforce. About half are private sector employers. iv The ON benchmarking scheme gives scores on three aspects of their gender
programmes, ‘Motivate’, ‘Act’ and ‘Impact’. Companies scoring highly on external
communications tended to score highly on the benchmark overall. v More than half of ON employers are not yet satisfied that they are monitoring
effectively. ‘Just 40% of employers are measuring the cost of not getting equality right
(for example measuring turnover and absenteeism) and only 33% are measuring the
impact that gender equality/diversity has made on the organisation (for example higher
customer satisfaction)’ (2004:6). ‘More needs to be done on measuring the impact of
equality on the organisation, both of particular initiatives such as flexible working but
also of the contribution that equality/diversity work as a whole makes to organisational
results’ (2004:7). vi E.g. recognition in Opportunity Now awards and Best Place to Work awards vii These include: The Global Inclusion Benchmark (Employers Forum on Disability,2003),
Opportunity Now benchmarking questionnaire (2003), The Global Reporting Initiative
Reporting Guidelines (GRI,2002), Business in the community (BITC,2003) ‘Indicators
that Count’, BITC survey for CSR Index (2003), BITC guidance notes for CSR Index
(2003), Accounting for People Report (DTI 2003), EOC submission to Accounting for
People Task Force, Women’s Budget Group submission to Accounting for People Task
Force, Equal Opportunities for Women in the Workforce Agency Guidelines in Australia,
(SECTION 709(c), TITLE VII, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1967 (As Amended by the Equal
Employment Opportunity Act of 1972) Employer Information Report EEO-1) in the USA,
Singh,V. and Vinnicombe,S. (2003),’Women pass a milestone: 101 directorships on the
FTSE 100 Boards’. The Female FTSE Index Report, Cranfield University School of
Management, Calvert Group (2004)’The Calvert Women’s Principles’, Adams,C. and
Harte,G. (1999 and 2000). viii Eight of these interviews were recorded and transcribed, and notes were taken
during the other three. ix Their job titles were: Employment Policy Advisor, Diversity Advisor, Senior
Recruitment Consultant, Diversity Manager, Head of Diversity, Head of Organisational
Development, European Director of Diversity, Head of Employment Policy, Personnel
Director, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, and Head of a Human Capital
Reporting Project.
43
x Six interviewees were from the banking sector, two from the energy sector, one from
telecoms, one from transport, and one from manufacturing, xi The questionnaire can be obtained from the authors. xii As companies do not usually define ‘management’, these data are hard to compare. xiii This company reports part-timers as a percentage of its male and female workforce. xiv This information is not available to the public, except in aggregated form where
specific companies cannot be identified (SECTION 709(c), TITLE VII, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
OF 1967 (As Amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972) Employer
Information Report EEO-1). ON employers benchmarking in 2003-4 show more ethnic
minority women employed in the private sector than the public or education sectors in
the UK. No information is reported concerning disabled women, older women, and other
diversity strands. xv ON (2004) reveals that 50% of benchmarking companies claim to effectively monitor
recruitment by gender. xvi UK part-time workers receive on average 40% less training than their full-time
counterparts (EOC 2005) xvii Employers often consult women managers and women’s networks about gender
equality also. xviii One included percentages of discrimination tribunal and litigation cases with details of
outcomes. xix The Female FTSE index is now addressing this issue xx This interviewee specified ‘By market pressure I don’t mean little lobby groups… the
question is are the pension funds or the institutional shareholders really, really asking?
They do ask, but mostly not in great detail’ xxi This parallels some public policy developments e.g.the creation of an integrated
Commission for Equality and Human Rights xxii E.g. the Australian Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act (1999) requires
companies, public sector and other organisations with 100 or more people to establish a
workplace program to remove the barriers to women entering and advancing in their
organization and to report annually to the Equal Opportunities for Women in the
Workplace Agency giving a workplace profile and details on several key gender issues.
The Canadian Employment Equities Act of 1995 (section 9 (3)) includes similar
requirements for private companies with Federal Government contracts. See paragraph,
page 10 for the USA. xxiii The TUC advises trade union pension fund trustees to request company reporting on a
range of gender/diversity issue including workforce profile and equal pay (TUC 2004). xxiv See for example the CRE website for details of procurement guidance relating to the
public sector duty to promote racial equality.
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Business Ethics, Vol 62 No 4, pp. 327-340.
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organizational change. An exploration of Spanish companies”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol 14 No 2, pp. 213-
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Research Paper Series
International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
ISSN 1479-5116
Editor: Jeremy Moon
The ICCSR Research Papers Series is intended as a first-hand outlet for research output
of ICCSR. These include papers presented at symposiums and seminars, first drafts of
papers intended for submission in journals and other reports on ongoing or completed
research projects.
The objective of the ICCSR Research Papers Series is twofold: First, there is a time goal:
Given the quality of ICCSR publication, the targeted journals normally require large time
spans between submission and publication. Consequently, the ICCSR Research Papers
Series serves as a preliminary airing to working papers of ICCSR staff and affiliates which
are intended for subsequent publication. By this, research output can be made available
for a selected public which will not only establish ICCSR’s lead in advancing and
developing innovative research in CSR but will also open the opportunity to expose ideas
to debate and peer scrutiny prior to submission and/or subsequent publication. Second,
the ICCSR Research Papers Series offers the opportunity of publishing more extensive
works of research than the usual space constraints of journals would normally allow. In
particular, these papers will include research reports, data analysis, literature reviews,
work by postgraduate students etc. which could serve as a primary data resource for
further publications. Publication in the ICCSR Research Paper Series does not preclude
publication in refereed journals.
The ICCSR Research Papers Series consequently is interested in assuring high quality and
broad visibility in the field. The quality aspect will be assured by establishing a process of
peer review, which will normally include the Editor of the ICCSR Research Papers Series
and one further academic in the field. In order to achieve a reasonable visibility the
ICCSR Research Papers Series has full ISSN recognition and is listed in major library
catalogues worldwide. All papers can also be downloaded at the ICCSR website.
Published Papers
No. 01-2003 Wendy Chapple & Richard Harris
Accounting for solid waste generation in measures of regional productivity
growth
No. 02-2003 Christine Coupland
Corporate identities on the web: An exercise in the construction and
deployment of ‘morality’
No. 03-2003 David L. Owen
Recent developments in European social and environmental reporting and
auditing practice – A critical evaluation and tentative prognosis
No. 04-2003 Dirk Matten & Andrew Crane
Corporate Citizenship: Towards an extended theoretical conceptualization
No. 05-2003 Karen Williams, Mike Geppert & Dirk Matten
Challenges for the German model of employee relations in the era of
globalization
No. 06-2003 Iain A. Davies & Andrew Crane
Ethical Decision Making in Fair Trade Companies
No. 07-2003 Robert J. Caruana
Morality in consumption: Towards a sociological perspective
No. 08-2003 Edd de Coverly, Lisa O’Malley & Maurice Patterson
Hidden mountain: The social avoidance of waste
No. 09-2003 Eleanor Chambers, Wendy Chapple, Jeremy Moon & Michael Sullivan
CSR in Asia: A seven country study of CSR website reporting
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No. 10-2003 Anita Fernandez Young & Robert Young
Corporate Social Responsibility: the effects of the Federal Corporate
Sentencing Guidelines on a representative self-interested corporation
No. 11-2003 Simon Ashby, Swee Hoon Chuah & Robert Hoffmann
Industry self-regulation: A game-theoretic typology of strategic voluntary
compliance
No. 12-2003 David A. Waldman, Donald Siegel & Mansour Javidan
Transformational leadership and CSR: A meso level approach
No. 13-2003 Jeremy Moon, Andrew Crane & Dirk Matten
Can corporations be citizens? Corporate citizenship as a metaphor for
business participation in society (2nd Edition)
No. 14-2003 Anita Fernandez Young, Jeremy Moon & Robert Young
The UK Corporate Social Responsibility consultancy industry: a
phenomenological approach
No. 15-2003 Andrew Crane
In the company of spies: The ethics of industrial espionage
No. 16-2004 Jan Jonker, Jacqueline Cramer and Angela van der Heijden
Developing Meaning in Action: (Re)Constructing the Process of Embedding
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Companies
No. 17-2004 Wendy Chapple, Catherine J. Morrison Paul & Richard Harris
Manufacturing and Corporate Environmental Responsibility: Cost
Implications of Voluntary Waste Minimisation
No. 18-2004 Brendan O’Dwyer
Stakeholder Democracy: Challenges and Contributions from Accountancy
No. 19-2004 James A. Fitchett
Buyers be Wary: Marketing Stakeholder Values and the Consumer
No. 20-2004 Jeremy Moon
Government as a Driver of Corporate Social Responsibility: The UK in
Comparative Perspective
No. 21-2004 Andrew Crane and Dirk Matten
Questioning the Domain of the Business Ethics Curriculum: Where the Law
ends or Where it Starts?
No. 22-2004 Jem Bendell
Flags of inconvenience? The global compact and the future of United
Nations
No. 23-2004 David Owen and Brendan O’Dwyer
Assurance Statement Quality in Environmental, Social and Sustainability
Reporting: a Critical Evaluation of Leading Edge Practice
No. 24-2004 Robert J. Caruana
Morality in consumption: towards a multidisciplinary perspective
No. 25-2004 Krista Bondy, Andy Crane & Laura Browne
Doing the Business: A film series programmed by ICCSR in conjunction
with Broadway Cinema
No. 26-2004 Stanley Chapman
Socially Responsible Supply Chains: Marks & Spencer in Historic
Perspective
No. 27-2004 Kate Grosser and Jeremy Moon
Gender Mainstreaming and Corporate Social Responsibility: Reporting
Workplace Issues
No.28-2004 Jacqueline Cramer, Angela van der Heijden and Jan Jonker
Corporate Social Responsibility: Balancing Between Thinking and Acting
No.29-2004 Dirk Matten and Jeremy Moon
'Implicit' and 'Explicit' CSR: A conceptual framework for understanding CSR
in Europe
No.30-2005 Nigel Roome and Jan Jonker
Whistling in the Dark
No.31-2005 Christine Hemingway
The Role of Personal Values in Corporate Social Entrepreneurship
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No.32-2005 David Owen
Corporate Social Reporting and Stakeholder Accountability The Missing Link
No.33-2005 David Owen
CSR After Enron: A Role for the Academic Accounting Profession?
No. 34-2006 Judy Muthuri, Jeremy Moon and Dirk Matten
Employee Volunteering And The Creation Of Social Capital
No.35-2006 Kate Grosser and Jeremy Moon
Best Practice Reporting on Gender Equality in the UK: Data, Drivers and
Reporting Choices