I've dealt with the issue of women in business a number of times in this column and was interested to see last week's IBEC report on the subject.Not surprisingly it found that women continue to be under-represented at senior management level in the Republic.
In a survey of 6,000 managerial/professional people, it found that 8 per cent of chief executives, 21 per cent of senior management/head of function and 30 per cent of middle managers were women.
It told us the only areas in which women managers outnumbered their male counterparts were in human resources and customer services. So there you have it - women are seen to be good at the touchy-feely sort of stuff but get less opportunities when it comes to the nitty-gritty of climbing the greasy pole elsewhere.
Business is a battlefield and men are definitely better equipped for the posturing it needs. Which means, if women want to get on, they have to be less nice, less touchy-feely and less empathic.
That seems nonsensical. Companies that deal with consumers are always at pains to point out how nice and empathic they are! How they care about us and our problems with dried-on egg stains and big gaps in our brickwork.
The problem, of course, of being a woman in management is that, you are so conscious of the fact that you're one of the few, you might take fewer risks than your male colleagues because you don't want to ruin things for other women in the industry.
And yet the greatest corporate cock-ups of recent months have been made by companies like Enron and Marconi, with heavy-hitting male chief executives who were being paid massive salaries, because it's a competitive marketplace out there.
Can we count AIB as being the exception that proves the rule, even though Susan Keating wasn't on the Irish board? According to the IBEC report, female participation in the workplace has increased by 140 per cent in the past 30 years compared with 27 per cent for males. Yet female managerial representation is still miserable. Until women are prepared to make mistakes and not fall into a deep depression as a result (so maybe Susan Keating can be a role model for us all), we'll continue to be sadly under-represented at the cherrywood board tables.
Interestingly, another report last week also highlighted women in business and their more risk-averse nature. My ex-employer, NCB, published a document entitled Women, the Economy and the Stockmarket. With similar figures for female participation at managerial levels as the IBEC survey (although in their case highlighting the 30 per cent of women in middle management or professional occupations), NCB dealt with the issue of women's independence in handling their financial affairs.
The company examined the experience of professional women in the US where, from 1986 to 1995, the percentage of top US wealth-holders that was male declined, while the percentage that was female increased. In 1995 women accounted for 36.4 per cent of individuals with assets over $600,000 - a 35 per cent increase from three years previously. According to the latest available data, the combined net worth of female top wealth-holders in 1995 was more than $2.2 trillion - which is 10.8 per cent of US personal net worth.
Clearly these wealthy women aren't depending on men to manage their money - they want to do it themselves and some US brokers estimate that women account for as much as 40 per cent of their client base, compared with 27 per cent in 1995.
But the attitudes towards investing between men and women are different because women are, as I've said already, more risk-averse. It seems that 73 per cent of women want "safe" investments, compared with 56 per cent of men, and more women than men place funds into a savings account.
Having seen the carnage in the stock markets over the past couple of years, you can't exactly criticise the strategy! Additionally, according to the Association of Business Recovery Professionals in Britain, self-employed women do better than men because they are more cautious and less extravagant with their money (eschewing massively overpriced corporate trips to golf tournaments perhaps) as well as less liable to take unnecessary risks.
Nonetheless we have to be prepared to fail if we want to succeed. Carly Fiorina, commenting on women in business, is quoted in the IBEC report as saying "companies that face intense competitive situations will figure out over time that all that matters is talent". Carly is clearly a woman not afraid to fail, although she must have been chewing her nails after the Hewlett-Packard vote on the merger with Compaq last week.
The Compaq shareholders overwhelmingly supported the move but the HP contingent, supported by Walter Hewlett, son of one of the founders, was a lot less certain and Carly nervously declared a "slim but sufficient" victory for the merger.
Obviously if the merged company is not successful, Carly will be the one to walk the gangplank. She says the reason other tech company mergers have failed is they haven't planned enough and she has 600 people burning the midnight oil on the future of the two companies. She thinks that in a consolidating industry, clients will want to deal with companies that can offer a wide range of technology services. Walter Hewlett feels that the merger increases HP's dependence on notoriously low-margin PC sales and would prefer to focus on the company's profitable printer business.
The full and frank exchange of views on this subject - something that doesn't happen half enough in business circles these days - has kept investors glued to the news releases. If Carly is right, all that womanly planning will have been worthwhile. If she's wrong she'll have to face the wrath of the shareholders. Just like any male chief executive.
