Gender quotas on boards 20 years on: a useful tool for increased wider diversity? Achievements, "broken promises" and blindspots in the Norwegian board diversity debate

Gender is a dimension of diversity, but diversity is more than gender. In this chapter we comment on the board diversity debate in Norway following the acceptance/introduction of the gender quota law in 2003/2006. The meaning of board diversity can be considered contextual, contested and temporal (see Lombardo et al 2010, Tatli et al. 2012). In the Norwegian context, we argue that while there was an implicit expectation that the gender quota law for Public Limited Companies (PLC) would increase diversity both within and beyond the PLC boards, the board diversity debate and achievements in Norway have been and still are predominantly focusing on gender and the PLC context. We argue that there is a need for a wider board diversity debate and focus from organisations, politicians and in research