Corporate Governance: Analysis of Board Diversity in Holden

This report provides an in-depth analysis of corporate governance, specifically focusing on board diversity within the context of General Motors Holden. It begins with an executive summary, table of contents, and an introduction to corporate governance and its relevance to diversity in the workplace, encompassing gender, age, skill, and ethnicity. The report highlights objections to board diversity, discussing concerns about mandatory regulations and the historical dominance of males. It then introduces the stakeholder theory as a relevant governance model, emphasizing the value creation for all stakeholders, including women. The report details the advantages of board diversity, such as increased share value and improved corporate governance, while also acknowledging potential disadvantages like tokenism. The importance of board diversity is emphasized, advocating for diversity in recruitment processes. The report concludes with recommendations for improving board diversity by addressing unconscious biases, ensuring equal opportunities, and creating visions for female members. The report draws from several sources, including academic journals and industry reports, to support its arguments.

Running Head: Corporate Governance
Corporate Governance
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note

1CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Executive Summary
The following report is based on corporate governance with its major aim of board diversity.
The following paper is comprised of the advantage and disadvantage factors that are aligned
to board diversity. Following in the earlier phase there are various objections that are stated
helping to highlight the areas of bringing in board diversity. Further in the report will
comprise of a government theory that caters to assist the implementation of board diversity.

2CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Company Overview...................................................................................................3
Objections to have board diversity.............................................................................3
Government theory applicable for the company........................................................5
Advantage and disadvantage of board diversity........................................................5
Importance of board diversity........................................................................................6
Recommendation............................................................................................................6
Reference........................................................................................................................8

3CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Introduction
The following report is based on corporate governance and the issues faced in board
diversity. The aim of this assignment is to generate a report which will focus on in depth
analysis of the board diversity. The concept of corporate governance is giving its attention on
the issues faced in workplaces especially in the area of gender, age, sex, skill and ethnicity.
However it is believed that there is a target to encourage the cooperation to increase the board
diversity (Tricker and Tricker 2015). Board diversity of any company can be defined as the
rate or proportion of Asian, women, American-African and Hispanics on the board of
directors. However corporate governance of any organisation can be referred to as a way of
cooperation which is governed. It is the technique which the company are managed and
directed (Armstron et al, 2015). This analysis is important for the organisation because it
presents the first evidence examining the board diversity while being associated with the
improved financial values.
Name of the Company- General Motors Holden
Company Overview
Holden is also formally known as General Motors Holden which is an Australian
automobile manufacturer which caters to manufacture cars in Australia. It was founded in the
year 1856 in Port Melbourne by James Alexander Holden (Darwin 2016). It canters to share
its models with Toyota, Nissan, Chevrolet, Isuzu and many more companies. The logo of
Holden replicates a lion holding a stone and was introduced in 1928. While holding a number
of position in Australia vehicle sales it also comprise of manufacturing cars and has been
involves in factory backed team in Melbourne touring car racing since 1968.
Objections to have board diversity
Australia should volunteer to demonstrate the codes and training solution without any
mandatory regulation. However in Holden the objection was to increase the point of board
diversity because the board members had an intention regulate the meaningful target in near
future. Stating the point on gender diversity there has been an increase in pressure from the
company to exhibit the best known corporate governance (Hunt, Layton and Prince 2015).
Holden bought the significance of corporate governance captivated to the public eye as the

4CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
drawback and failure had affected the economic globally. However this was the major
objection to have board diversity into corporate governance. It is argued that diversity in the
plank room can be implementing as a tool just to strengthen the corporate governance.
However the board diversity is related to a variety of unspecified and native characteristics
and traits as this report specifies to cater the points related to board diversity of the board
members. With the fact that there has always been a male dominance the increased female
participation at board level is a topic of the debate (Kuorikosk and Marchionni 2016).
Whereas the objection is also made on board diversity as it is important to the stakeholder
such as the consumers or employees. Therefore the consideration of the stakeholders
preference, concern and aspiration must be beneficial for the firm through the process of
improving the customer loyalty and the motivating the employee.
According to ASX or Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is
the authoritarian body which compel to sexual characteristics quotas which should be
government or business communities at huge elect to introduce quotas. After the
recommendation was made by ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations
(CGPR) in 2011, the company had created to its aim to keep the attribute of gender diversity
a as a high priority. The main argument is to place the women on the board on the place of
senior managerial operation and employed throughout the time they spent in the organisation
(Arnardottir and Sigurjonsson 2017). Other than this organisation there are various other non-
profit organisation and government bodies that have launched the voluntary quota system
which comprise of various degrees of success and uptake the corporate governance.
However this discussion is vital for the organisation as they imagine that gender equal
opportunity at the board level is needed. According to Watson he indicates that there are three
predominant in line of reasoning:
1. Social justice of women is representing proportionately as they are a part of the
decision-making activities.
2. The experiential evidence fight in relation to the accounts or financial presentation of
the company.
3. Lastly the functional way of thinking for being on the board is more effective when
the females are represents.

5CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
This is the attempt to discuss the objections of board diversity as the opportunity for the
women is less in the corporate life and secondly the historical belief of male dominate is
empowered in the organisation. To eradicate these issues the above mentioned objections are
placed and therefore the corporate should focus on Australian charge of maintaining fairness
in the place of work where it seeks to determine if the continent is adopting a mandatory
gender quota which is the most excellent interest of the corporation in the current scenario of
the corporate life.
Government theory applicable for the company
In order to bring in board diversity the company should formulate the theory of
stakeholder theory as it views to capitalize the stress, the inter-linked relationship with the
business and its customers, suppliers, employee, investors and communities who have a stake
in the company. This theory will however argue on the fact that the firm should create the
value for the entire stakeholder (Keynes 2018). This is important for the company because
keeping in women as stakeholders will assist in maintaining the environment and make more
revenue. This will assist the women to play a vital role in the society in terms of bringing in
innovation, creating more job opportunity, looking after the benefits of the employee and
there after bring in success for the value as a whole. This theory will assist the women on
board to look after the matters that bring in success as well as failure and state that the
managers of the company must take into account what they need as shareholders.
Advantage and disadvantage of board diversity
The advantages of board diversity can be illustrated as follows:
 Diversity is food for share price: eliminating the concept of male dominance over the
management the board diversity must increase the value of shares as it would improve
the probability that becomes obligatory quotas to be enacted with little argument from
the corporate world (Kakabadse et al, 2015).
 Correlation between female directorship and good corporate governance: it is
analyzed that the women or female directorship is a better approach to test the
decisions and advocate different viewpoint. There are diverse boards that have
improved the strategic decisions and is making risk and power management. However
the feminine directors develop the protocol of an organisation and improve the intra

6CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
board announcement (Cabrera, Martínez and Hernández 2016). They are more aware
of social dynamics and human problems.
 Reflect diversity paradigms in society: this is the strongest argument on the favor of
being equally treated in the work place, where gender diversity is the meeting room in
the social impartiality arguments. It is important to support the gender diversity as kit
can hold the dispute on the ground of social justice.
The factors that cause a disadvantage to board diversity are:
 The quotas could cause tokenism.
 The females may be important to the senior management with the intention that they
are unqualified for just so that the company can comply for the quota.
 The administration should intervene the corporate affairs that make the marketplace
drive the correct level of gender diversity.
 There is no empirical evidence which has gender diversity boards which can cause a
benefit to corporate performance.
Importance of board diversity
The importance of board diversity in the company was commonly jovial places the
board of directors was like minded and made an agreeable atmosphere in certain areas. There
is wide acceptance of this need in the corporate world and is highlighted to cater the fact that
there is interpersonal relationship between the business performance and the workplace
diversity (Hillman 2015). The board diversity is the result of an exceptional search and also
takes place in the recruitment process and is well managed in the organisation. This approach
covers the age, gender, background, ethnicity and skill of the female employee. However the
decision making ability creates an impact on the business and allows it to go further. The
membership on boards should be representatives of the business and ultimately the employee
will be normalized than diversity.

7CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Recommendation
Hence it can be recommended that the board diversity can improve by addressing
what lies under the surface. The unconscious bias can be shaped in all the aspects of
recruiting process and the way the organisation are posted to the experience the employees on
board members. The diversity has always been a priority for the organisation. It becomes a
challenging factor to teach the female in large numbers and in particular region. Secondly it
can be recommended that there should be no state of creating a barrier between the gender,
age, caste, creed or religion when the point comes to hire the female candidate. The
management must ensure that there is equal opportunity for all the members in case of salary,
placing people in boards, increment in annual pay, annual appraisals and many more. Hence
it can be said that the board diversity must create a vision for all the female members in order
to aspire goals and target in their career life. It will not only help the, to stand in a managerial
level but will set themselves as an example for other and can be a voice to show what positive
changes they can bring in.

8CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Reference
Armstrong, C.S., Blouin, J.L., Jagolinzer, A.D. and Larcker, D.F., 2015. Corporate
governance, incentives, and tax avoidance. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 60(1),
pp.1-17.
Arnardottir, A.A. and Sigurjonsson, T.O., 2017. Gender diversity on boards in Iceland:
Pathway to gender quota law following a financial crisis. In Gender diversity in the
boardroom (pp. 75-101). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Cabrera-Fernández, A.I., Martínez-Jiménez, R. and Hernández-Ortiz, M.J., 2016. Women’s
participation on boards of directors: a review of the literature. International Journal of
Gender and Entrepreneurship.
Darwin, N., 2016. The development of Australian automotive design: General Motors
Holden, 1923-1953. In Automotive Histories Driving Futures 2016 (pp. 1-13). Automotive
Historians Australia Inc.
Hillman, A.J., 2015. Board diversity: Beginning to unpeel the onion. Corporate Governance:
An International Review, 23(2), pp.104-107.
Hunt, V., Layton, D. and Prince, S., 2015. Diversity matters. McKinsey & Company, 1(1),
pp.15-29.
Kakabadse, N.K., Figueira, C., Nicolopoulou, K., Hong Yang, J., Kakabadse, A.P. and
Özbilgin, M.F., 2015. Gender diversity and board performance: Women's experiences and
perspectives. Human Resource Management, 54(2), pp.265-281.
Keynes, J.M., 2018. The general theory of employment, interest, and money. Springer.
Kuorikoski, J. and Marchionni, C., 2016. Evidential diversity and the triangulation of
phenomena. Philosophy of Science, 83(2), pp.227-247.

9CORPORATE GOVERNANACE
Tricker, R.B. and Tricker, R.I., 2015. Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and
practices. Oxford University Press.