Elena Montani

The current research aims at checking the composition of "pink shares" within the Boards of the companies listed on regulated markets and at highlighting the consequences of the introduction of the Law n. 120 of July 12th, 2011 (Law Golfo-Mosca), that provided for the principle of balance between genders in the boards of listed companies and of not listed companies with public control. In the first place, Italian regulatory situation and positioning of national practice compared to other European and international systems have been assessed. Then empirical research was conducted on 188 companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange. Data on the composition of the board have been extracted from the annual financial statements for 2011 and 2012 and from the reports of the first half-year 2013. The work focused on the composition of the Boards of Directors, in order to analyze the evolution before and after the introduction of the Mosca-Golfo law, highlighting the number of women in the boards by sector, the trend of female presence in the boards and a comparison of the trend of women in the boards with the trend of women in executive roles. The introduction of quotas for women gave a decisive boost to the opening of the boards to the female gender, even though access for the moment is concentrated mainly on non-executive roles. The first data suggest that the observed trend will continue, but the lasting effects will depend on the ability to create a profound cultural change.

The present study concentrates on companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and on their consolidated financial statements, which, starting from the financial year 2005, have to be prepared and published according to the international accounting standards instead of the national ones. The research shown in the following pages is the result of a descriptive statistical analysis that can be defined as the first step of the study. The aim is to identify the main impacts on the most important financial statement items (Equity and Net Income) of the transition from the Italian to the international accounting system. The following steps will be to focus on Italian listed companies belonging to furniture and fashion industry sectors in order investigate the treatment of intangible assets according to IAS 38 – Intangible Assets and IAS 36 – Impairment of Assets, comparing the two sectors.