Norway's new femme quotas. (Market Horizons).

A profusion of initiatives have come and gone. Appropriate sounding targets have been set for distant dates. Networks, development programs and old-fashioned exhortation have all been tried. And still women are conspicuous by their absence from the boardrooms of the world.

Policymakers in Norway believe the time has come for drastic action. They are taking a sledgehammer to the glass ceiling. Earlier this year, the Norwegian government ordered state-owned enterprises to bring the number of women on their boards up to 40 percent within a year. Norway's 650 public companies have three years to meet the quota voluntarily. Failure to hit the deadlines could trigger legislation to force them to do so.

The government ultimatum comes after calls from successive administrations to appoint more women directors. Informal quotas have existed since 1981, when the country's first woman prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, took office. Since then, 40 percent of government posts have been held by women. Women already occupy 6 percent of boardroom positions in Norway's preternaturally progressive system, compared to a European average of 2 percent.

The decree has been welcomed by the country's trade unions, which have lobbied for the quotas for 20 years. Some state-owned companies also have embraced diversity. Norway's oil producer Statoil, for example, has four women on its nine-member board. According to CEO Olav Fjell, "What matters to us is to get the best board possible. My view is that if you can get a good mix of women and men it helps the quality."

Others are incensed by the threat of legal sanctions. Norway's employers' federation, the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry, views the decree as an attack on shareholder democracy. The confederation argues that laws to enforce the quota will undermine the country's competitiveness and discourage foreign companies from setting up shop in Norway. Added frisson stems from the reality that many male board members will be replaced (there is, however, a corresponding 40 percent quota floor on the number of men on boards).

Whether ministers have the will to legislate remains to be seen. But the threat has forced companies to take the issue seriously.

The chairman of one Norwegian company we spoke to believes his peers are likely to heed the "direction if not the magnitude" of the government edict. But he is sanguine about the threat of legal action. "I don't think we will be particularly nervous if we haven't met the 40 percent quota in the next three years.

But, he adds, the ultimatum may have already had the desired effect, with many companies now actively recruiting more women directors. "There's a sense that you need to get started quickly because there are not enough qualified women to go around," he notes.

So, should the United States follow the Norwegian lead? The idea has a certain appeal. Setting quotas might blast a path through the tokenism that has often characterized the debate and bring boardroom representation in line with broad employment trends. It could also open the door to more enlightened policies toward career and family, and bring some much-needed yin to the predominant yang of corporate life.

Are we advocating quotas? Actually no. There are lots of reasons why it wouldn't work. For one thing, it's unclear how Norway intends to enforce the new quotas-and governments are best advised to avoid laws they can't enforce, lest they undermine their authority.

More than that, the quotas approach is a distraction from the more important issue, namely that companies are best served by the efficient functioning of a genuine meritocracy rather than prescriptive social engineering.

The argument for more women in the boardroom is perhaps best made through an appeal to common sense. In a corporate world suffering from a shortage of capable directors it simply does not make sense to select business leaders from 50 percent of the potential candidates. Smart companies know that.

Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer are founders of U.K.-based Suntop Media. Send comments to [e-mail].