Eastern Michigan University researchers recently completed the fourth biannual Women's Leadership Index, which showed some mixed results for how women are faring in Michigan board rooms.

The heart of the report, according to EMU: The lack of gender diversity in top business positions puts the state at a competitive disadvantage.

According to EMU:

• Only Detroit-based Compuware Corp. has been listed in the best-performing Most Valuable Player category since the inception of the WLI.

• More than half of the Michigan Index 100 companies have at least one woman director. However, women hold a mere 9.6% (83) of the total 866 board seats in the 2009 Michigan top 100 companies, virtually the same percentage they held in all prior WLI reports.

• In Michigan’s Fortune 500 companies, women hold 31 of 192 board seats (16.1%). This is an improvement over the 2007 rate of 14.3%.

• Only 41 women executives - 9.4% of the 435 total - are among the highest five compensated in their companies; three of them among the 19 Michigan Fortune 500 companies.

• Women hold 56 of 533 (10.5%) executive positions in the state’s top 100 public companies.

• Three companies in the WLI Top 100 have woman CEOs. That is an improvement from 2007, when none of the Top 100 had a woman CEO.

What this means for business was discussed in a column by EMU Business School Dean David Mielke published Sunday on AnnArbor.com.

And Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh wrote in detail about the study today.

As Walsh wrote: "Nearly half of Michigan's top 100 public companies have no female board members. And the number of all-male boards this year, 46, is higher than the 41 in the three previous studies. Conversely, the number of boards that are at least 20% female -- 16 this year -- is a significant leap from just nine back in 2003."

The full study will be released Wednesday at two Inforum events: One in the morning in Grand Rapids and one in the afternoon in Dearborn.