Recent studies show how a gender premium has led to a significant rise in women’s representation on the US corporate boards. However, what factors influence their first-time outside board appointments and whether or not a seat on an outside board allows first-time women directors to capture the certification benefits of board membership remain open questions. In this study, we integrate insights from the signaling theory, board certification, and the female leadership advantage literature to theorize that women executives with no prior board experience have a higher likelihood of being selected as an outside director compared to their male counterparts, especially when environmental, firm-level, and board-level factors enable women’s competence signals to be unequivocally perceived by the hiring board. However, unlike male executives, a corporate board seat does not translate to career advantages for female executives at their home firms. We empirically test these predictions using a sample of men and women in executive roles currently or previously on S&P 1500 firms beginning in 2003.
