Perceived Barriers and Reported Strategies for Increasing Diversity on Board of Directors on Builder Associations

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are concepts many nonprofit and for-profit boards have struggled with for decades. Corporate America has been under increased pressure to diversify the boardroom from federal and state governments, the stock exchanges, and stakeholders. Volunteer professional and trade associations have also suffered from the deficit of gender and ethnic/racial minorities within the leadership ranks, specifically on boards of directors. Even though progress has been made, the composition of most professional and trade association boards still does not reflect the diversity of the U.S. population, or in many cases, the membership at large. The purpose of this non-representative descriptive study was to assess the perceived significance of barriers to DEI among Executive Officers (EOs) of Home Builders Associations (HBAs) and Building Industry Associations (BIAs), and to document the strategies these organizations report previously implementing to increase gender and ethnic diversity on their boards of directors. Data were analyzed and reported both in the aggregate and by geographic regions and membership size. Quantitative analysis was conducted by the Dissertation Advisor, while qualitative responses were coded by the principal investigator. Results revealed no differences in the perceived significance of barriers to either women and racial/ethnic minority board membership, based on region or size. Based on analysis of composite scores, none of the barriers to gender diversity wereperceived as more significant than not significant, while four barriers related to availability were rated as at least somewhat significant by a slight majority of respondents. With respect to racial/ethnic diversity, four barriers, all related to availability, were rated as more significant than not significant, based on composite scores, while nine barriers were rated as at least somewhat significant by a majority of respondents. The most frequently reported strategy previously adopted by participating HBA/BIAs was no strategy. Insufficient data were collected to permit accurate interpretation of the breakdown of strategies adopted by region or size. The primary recommendation for future research is to invest more effort in developing an assessment instrument that will have great face validity among the target population, by partnering with representatives of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and piloting the tool with EOs. Given the low reported adoption of strategies to address DEI on HBA/BIA boards, future research is recommended to assess the effectiveness of these strategies before investing in efforts to promote adoption.