Gender Balance in Corporate Boards and in Top Management in Latvia

In Latvia, the education level of women is higher than of men, while the rate of remuneration is higher for men than for women, and women are under-represented in management positions. The aim of the research is to analyse the theoretical aspects of the gender balance and diversity management in companies, to explore the situation of the gender proportion within the large companies of Latvia and to identify the factors that contribute to the growth of the women representation within the TOP management. The European Commission (EC) has set the target to reach the women representation up to 40% within the management of companies by 2020 and encourages the EU Member States on the application of the legislative quotas. Latvia is among those EU countries that has expressed official position against the introduction of quotas within the legislation, and thus, is seeking for other opportunities to stimulate gender balance within the companies. Latvia is a newcomer and lacks research in this field that emphasises the novelty of this paper. The paper investigates the gender situation in order to determine to what extent the ‘glass ceiling’ affects women's career growth in large companies of Latvia. Moreover, the paper analyses the benefits of the gender diversity to be used as incentive for the large companies of Latvia. The article has been prepared based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources, outcome synthesis and the evaluation of results of a survey of employees of large companies of Latvia (n=211) and survey of HR managers of large companies (n=50). Results present characteristic features of good female and male managers as perceived by the respondents. Managers of each gender have their strengths, which could together contribute to improved management performance