Despite Quotas, There's Rough Road Ahead for Women in Europe - Prof Herminia Ibarra (INSEAD)

HBR Blog Network, November 14, by Herminia Ibarra

"It's done," said European Commissioner Viviane Reding today. "The Commission has adopted my proposal for a European law so that women represent 40% of company board members by 2020."

Reding has often repeated, "I don't like quotas, but I like what they do." A controversial measure, hotly contested by a number of European countries and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic, the new law will come up against deeply entrenched assumptions about gender roles and divided opinions about the best way to increase the uncontested penury of women at the top of business organizations...

---

Herminia Ibarra

is a professor of organizational behavior and the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at Insead. She is the author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press, 2003).