Comment/Yvonne Galligan: In the light of recent corporate scandals, finding new ways of securing investor confidence in corporate business is once again high on the agenda.

A new report, Women and Corporate Governance in Ireland, suggests that bringing more women into corporate decision-making can help do just that.

Commissioned by the International Women's Forum - Ireland, the report throws light on Irish boardroom culture. A comprehensive survey of the attitudes of corporate leaders and women directors is supplemented by detailed interviews with leading chief executives. The findings make challenging reading for the Irish business world.

The survey was compiled by the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics at Queen's University Belfast, and the qualitative interviews and analysis was completed by Dr Maureen Gaffney, a member of IWF Ireland. The report reveals that women make up just 5 per cent of board directors in Ireland's top 100 companies. A major conclusion of the report is that chief executives and company chairmen need to expand their trawls for new directors to include qualified women.

This may be easier said than done. International research finds that since chief executives and male board members have worked with few women in their careers, it becomes easy to nurture stereotypes that inhibit them from appointing unknown women.

Ms Rosemary Wilson, director of the Boardroom Centre, observed that, in 14 years, she has only been asked specifically for a woman director on two occasions.

When asked why there are so few women in the boardrooms of corporate Ireland, men and women's views were remarkably different. Chief executives and chairmen thought that women had not been coming through the "ranks" for long enough - an explanation echoed by 82 per cent of Fortune 1,000 chief executives.

They also believed that qualified women were not coming forward to declare an interest in serving on a board.

Women directors laid the responsibility for gender imbalance on companies, suggesting that boards did not know where to find suitable women. They also pointed to the persistence of a stereotyped view of women's capabilities among board directors.

Yet, only 15 per cent of chief executives and chairmen were willing to admit that male boards held traditional views of women.

This discrepancy is in line with international findings. One US survey revealed that more than half of female directors felt that male stereotyping of women was a problem. Only one-quarter of the men agreed.

However, as Dr Gaffney's qualitative study shows, chief executives who have direct experience of working with women on boards are uniformly enthusiastic. They value the diversity of perspective that women bring to corporate decision-making.

One chief executive saw many advantages in having women directors: "I think they bring a diversity of thinking round the table which is fantastic. They are more lateral thinkers and have a more practical view. Traditionally, men are the 'toughies' but I feel that women are capable of being tough too."

Interestingly, when asked how many women should be on a board, another chief executive replied that he would want a minimum of three women directors. He reasoned that, with this minimum, "the dynamic would begin to work in a male/female way" leading to better corporate decision-making.

Business experience is an essential qualification for a non-executive director, according to women and men, and the route to a directorship was via recommendation of the company chief executive or another board member.

Herein lies the problem and solution to women's absence from boardrooms. The problem, as the report found, rests in the invisibility of women's business experience and the use of restricted recruitment networks. Of the latter, one chief executive commented: "Why so few women? The 'clubby' reason. Look at golf, the huge number of men on those corporate golf outings. That is quite a factor."

Some 78 per cent of chief executives and chairmen who responded to the survey had no policy regarding the appointment of women to their boards and 76 per cent had no plans to introduce such a policy.

This finding points to the self-reproductive nature of board appointments. Given the critical role of chief executives and chairmen in making such appointments, the inability of Irish corporate leaders to recognise these problems is perhaps the greatest obstacle to bringing more women into boardrooms.

The report offers a number of recommendations. The barriers that prevent a critical mass of women in middle management from reaching senior management must be addressed. These barriers are cultural, relating to people's attitudes towards gender equality in a company. Failing to capitalise on the full human resource potential in a company is a real business cost. If women cannot realistically hope to reach senior positions, they will take their talents elsewhere.

Potential directors may be found outside the business community. The report suggests that chief executives consider the pool of talented women serving on public or State boards. Women leaders in the voluntary and non-profit sector are another source of potential non-executive directors.

A greater awareness of the business case for more diversity on boards would also help. There is substantial evidence that more diverse decision-making bodies are more effective: they generate more ideas and innovative solutions, and achieve better business performance.

Having women on boards not only brings that diversity of approach to the board's functioning, but also makes it available to the business.

Last, but not least, recruitment procedures need to change. The general movement towards more formal and transparent procedures for nominating new directors may help more women be nominated and appointed to boards. Expanding the pool of potential women directors, and bringing them into the boardrooms of corporate Ireland, will require an urgent and sustained effort.

If Ireland Inc is to remain competitive in the world of global business, boards can no longer afford to remain women free.

Dr Yvonne Galligan is the director of the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics, Queen's University Belfast