We disaggregate board interlocks by the gender of the connecting director and examine their effect on firms’ environmental and social (ES) performance. Interlocks mediated by female directors are associated with a deterioration in ES scores, while male-mediated interlocks exhibit the opposite pattern. Using an instrumental variable approach that exploits variation in director supply induced by California’s 2018 board gender quota, we establish that this effect is causal and concentrated in health and safety score, the ES outcome most dependent on active board-level oversight. Examination of the mechanism reveals that post-quota female directors who create interlocks are selected for financial credentials, changing the content of what flows through female-mediated interlocks from stakeholder-oriented priorities to financial oversight.
Presented at the 36th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, the International Corporate Governance Society Conference (ICGS23), the Women and Finance Université Paris 1 Sorbonne, the Research Symposium in Finance and Economics 2023, the FMCG23 conference, the 16th Financial Risks International Forum, French Inter Business School Workshop in Finance
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4260457
(solo authored paper)
Older versions of this article have been previously circulated with the title “Overboarded”.
Annalisa Tonetto 