Gender equality is widely discussed topic in the modern society, and the issue of female underrepresentation on corporate boards has been discussed for decades. Previous research, on one hand, is focused on non-financial contribution of women on boards, such as improvement of communication, decision-making, stronger focus on CSR and stakeholder orientation etc. On the other hand, correlation between female presence and financial outcomes, such as accounting and market performance, has been receiving contradicting results that would show positive relationship, negative or no relationship at all. However, earlier studies only considered the physical presence of women on boards as a predictor of performance. They did not account for the actual role of women on the boards - are they tokens, or do they hold a real power to make a change and influence financial outcomes?

In order to rise above the shortcomings of the previous research, this study evaluates the power held by women on Swedish boards in Large Cap companies. With that purpose, power indices had been developed that consider such influence sources as leadership, committee participation, connections to the owners and to the management, and experience. The power index also accounts for the fulfillment of “critical mass” criterion. The findings had shown a negative relationship between power of female directors and firm performance, although this correlation might be explained by a short-term oriented nature of the research. Furthermore, this paper suggests a large variety of subjects for future research in the field of gender equality on boards.