Abstract
As corporate boards engage increasingly with the challenges societies face on a local and global level, women on boards are seen as a way to improve the firm’s corporate social performance. However, studies investigating the positive effect of women on boards on corporate social performance tend to assume that women, who are expected to demonstrate more communal and benevolent qualities than men, express their views in board discussions and that their views influence decision-making. In other words, there is an assumption that women speak up and their voices are heard. However, drawing upon status-related theory, I argue that this is not always the case and propose a new theoretical model which suggests that the positive effect of women on boards on corporate social responsibility depends on contextual factors influencing the salience of their gender and their other status-related characteristics, such as other demographic characteristics, power of their networks, and functional background. My propositions, which will be more explicitly stated in the fully developed paper, answer the questions of when gender discourages women on boards from using their voices (intrapersonal level) and when gender influences others not to listen to women’s voices (interpersonal level), consequently limiting the influence of women on boards on the firm’s corporate social responsibility. Theoretical contributions are discussed.