Aaron Dhir presented the findings of his latest book: Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity: Corporate Law, Governance, and Diversity.
About the Book:
The lack of gender parity in the governance of business corporations has ignited a heated global debate leading policymakers to wrestle with difficult questions that lie at the intersection of market activity and social identity politics. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with corporate board directors in Norway and documentary content analysis of corporate securities filings in the United States, Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity empirically investigates two distinct regulatory models designed to address diversity in the boardroom: quotas and disclosure. The author’s study of the Norwegian quota model demonstrates the important role diversity can play in enhancing the quality of corporate governance, while also revealing the challenges diversity mandates pose. His analysis of the U.S. regime shows how a disclosure model has led corporations to establish a vocabulary of “diversity.” At the same time, the analysis highlights the downsides of affording firms too much discretion in defining that concept. This book deepens ongoing policy conversations and offers new insights into the role law can play in reshaping the gendered dynamics of corporate governance cultures.
About the Author:
Aaron Dhir is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. His scholarly interests centre on corporate law, governance, theory, and accountability. He was the 2013–2014 Canadian Bicentennial Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, as well as a Global Justice Senior Fellow at the Yale MacMillan Center. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School and as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, the University of Oxford, Berkeley Law School, and University College London. Professor Dhir is the author of Challenging Boardroom Homogeneity: Corporate Law, Governance, and Diversity (Cambridge University Press, 2015; paperback edition, 2016) and has published widely in scholarly journals. He has contributed opinion pieces to The Atlantic, The Globe & Mail, and The Toronto Star, and his research findings have been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Newsweek, Pacific Standard, The Globe & Mail, The Financial Post, The Toronto Star, National Public Radio, CBC Radio-Canada, The Seattle Times, The Hartford Courant, Lexpert Magazine, TheStreet, El Mercurio (Chile), and ThinkProgress. Professor Dhir has participated as an invited expert in some of the most significant policy reform initiatives in his areas of expertise, including those convened by the Government of Canada, the Ontario Securities Commission, and the former United Nations Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. He began his professional career with one of Canada’s leading business law firms. He then made a shift to social justice advocacy and has acted on cases up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada.