4.5 Analysis of the results of the empirical Nyenrode studies I and II

In this section, the results of the Nyenrode Studies I and II concerning the companies’ compliance in the successive financial years 2013 and 2014 are presented and analyzed, at least to the extent that the study concerned topics that deal with the subject of this chapter, i.e., gender diversity in corporate boards. Section 4.5.1 describes the findings of the Nyenrode Study I, and Section 4.5.2 elaborates on the findings of the Nyenrode Study II. In both subsections, we also give an account of the Committee’s recommendations to the Dutch listed companies in view of the research findings.

For the sake of completeness, we point out that the EU Directive 2014/95 was not yet applicable to Dutch listed companies at the time when we collected our data in year 1 and year 2. However, the text of the Directive had already been determined in 2013 and adopted in 2014. Hence, we expected that companies would have anticipated the application of this Directive, and organized their information streams already in the direction which the Directive requires.