The woeful state of Australia’s female representation at executive and board level and lack of real action to improve this issue creates a lot of conversation and study about what programs are working overseas.

One of the most standard out initiatives is Norway’s 40% quota for board members. Women make up 40% of board members in Norway – because they have to. But does this work? Do the women feel token?

Catalyst recently featured a guest blog by Morten Huse, a professor of Organization and management at a Norwegian university about his study on these very questions, and he forewarns, “simple answers about the law’s effectiveness are not yet possible”.

But what he and Sabina Nielson discovered after interviewing 392 board members for 120 firms is important. These findings include no real difference between male and female responses to their survey, the importance of diverse skills, values and professional experience of women on boards and more importantly, how women used these attributes in strategic decision-making.

Get the full article on the findings.