ABSTRACT

Title: The exact title used in the thesis will be mentioned here.Level: Bachelor thesis in BusinessAuthor: Mattias Lindqvist & Jonas TesfaySupervisor: Peter LindbergDate: 2011 – JuneAim: In Sweden the representation of women on company boards is discussed extensively. It has also been suggested that regulations such as quotas should be imposed, in hopes of getting the gender balance on the board of directors. Measures such as these have been presented when this problem attacks our democratic values about how a society should look like. The aim is to study and analyze whether there is any connection between the return on assets and the proportion of women on company boards.Method: The paper is made from a quantitative with a deductive approach. We have collected our data between the years 2005-2009 for all listed companies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange with headquarters in Sweden. Using the databases Retriever and SIS Ägarservice, all collected secondary data have been validated. We have done a regression analysis using TSP Version 5.0.Result & Conclusions: We have in this study demonstrated that there is no correlation between the return on assets and the share of women in the board of directors. However one reason for the increase of women in the board of directors could be caused by the public debate about women.Suggestions for future research: Our proposal for further research is to locate the variables that have a higher coefficient of determination. Another proposal is to investigate the reasons for more women appointed to the board because the company already has a high profitability. A third issue is to measure non-visible variables.Contribution of the thesis: We believe that the contribution is the non-correlation result between the percentage of women on the board and return on assets.Key words: Return on total assets, Women, Boards of companies, Risk Aversion