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There's a famous story - probably an urban legend - in Wellington banking circles.
It goes like this. A young woman economist had gone on to be a successful senior public servant. When she rolled up to attend her first board meeting at this particular New Zealand bank
the chairman looked up and greeted her with a smile. "I'll have a black coffee with two sugars, thank you!", he chirped.
Women in business have come a long way since then, one would hope - and a new study confirms the value of their contribution at board level.
Women directors lift the performance of corporate boards and are more likely to turn up to meetings, new research shows.
University of Queensland business school's Professor Renée Adams and researcher Dr Daniel Ferreira used data sourced from the US Investor Responsibility Research Centre to assess the contribution of women on boards.
The researchers found boards with more female directors were characterised by greater participation of directors in decision-making, tougher monitoring of the CEO and more alignment with the interests of shareholders.
"The research provides empirical evidence to support what has until now been a largely ideological debate," Prof Adams said.
"Our findings concluded that women have better attendance records on boards than men."
The research also found participation at board meetings increased when there were women on the board.
"One explanation for this is that female directors take their jobs quite seriously and overall are quite tough as directors," Prof Adams said.
The research also showed that women were more likely to sit on committees with auditing and nominating roles.
Globally, boards are under pressure to recruit more women with some countries legislating quotas to improve diversity on boards, Prof Adams said.
"From January last year, companies in Norway have been required to ensure at least 40 per cent of directors are female," she said.
"Spain is following suit with their quota, also 40 per cent, coming into effect from 2015, and Sweden is planning to do the same."
Prof Adams said the research project was conducted over the past six years and was due to be published in the Journal of Financial Economics.
* Renée Adams is the first female to take on a strictly finance portfolio at the professorial level in Australia.
- AAP