The impact on the governance of the gender quotas legislation: the Italian case

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to create a strong connection among the gender diversity literature in the stream of gender quotas in the international context and the main legislation on gender diversity – the Law 120/2011 ‘‘Golfo-Mosca’’ – in Italy requiring listed companies and companies under the public control to implement policies for increasing board diversity. Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a structured literature review method to propose relevant issues on this topic applying an innovative analytical framework based on the ‘‘article focus.’’ Additionally, an interview to a CEOof an Italian Bank has been done. Findings – In this step, results seemto underline the prominence of literature analyzing ‘‘woman in board of directors’’ promoting board diversity in the light of good governance. Additionally, this analysis is functional to the proposition of interesting insights from the Golfo-Mosca Law’s analysis in Italy emphasizing primary effects of its application during past seven years. Originality/value – Findings of this paper are original, as it is the first time that a research connects results from the structured literature review on gender issues and the related Italian law to draft emerging and thrilling issues in the light of transparent and responsible corporate governance system.