Gender Diversity in Management and Leadership: A new Competitive Advantage?

Today, there is an increasing recognition that the competitiveness of a country relies on the active involvement of women in education, business, politics and product and service development. The growing participation of women in labor market is considered as one of the key sources of sustained economic growth. In addition, women are more and more influencing the spending decision in household; however most of the technological products, processes and services are designed by men. In the age of user centered design, there are still too many examples, around us, of systems not perfectly suited to the cognitive or physical female features; such for instance, conventional seatbelts in cars do not fit pregnant woman, user interface navigation, game design based on men's interest, cars and so forth. This conceptual paper discusses the gender diversity in management and systems design as an important element for a competitive advantage for organizations.