Rosser, HeidiRyan, IreneMyers, Barbara2024-01-102024-01-102023-08-19Gender, Work and Organization, ISSN: 0968-6673 (Print); 0968-6673 (Online), Wiley. doi: 10.1111/gwao.130600968-66730968-6673http://hdl.handle.net/10292/17094This article places a critical lens over one part of an empirical study to explore the political reasons for why (or why not) women on boards policies are effective (or not) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Political intersectionality is used as a heuristic tool to link the political agendas of macro level public policies to meso‐level organizational processes and how these (re)shape the micro‐level everyday politics of structural privilege and disadvantage. Interview data from 10 influential male directors show how the political agendas of powerful interest groups can shape the dialog and further embed the status quo by promoting a business case for gender diversity based on the inherent assumption that it incentivizes businesses to function as meritocracies. We argue that power and conflicting political interests must be addressed if diversity‐related interventions are to achieve the desired gender equity and social justice outcomes in a board membership.© 2023 The Authors. Gender, Work & Organization published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/4408 Political Science44 Human SocietyGeneric health relevance1503 Business and Management1608 Sociology1699 Other Studies in Human SocietyGender Studies3505 Human resources and industrial relations4405 Gender studies4410 SociologyJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1111/gwao.13060