With the heightened societal demand for promoting egalitarian values in corporate boards, firms have devoted much effort to improving female board representation. However, recent insights have suggested that some progress made thus far may be the result of firms’ symbolic conformity to external pressure, which alludes to the possibility that female directors’ low influence and lack of integration on boards may still persist. In this dissertation, I aim to develop and test theoretical arguments of what determines and follows female directors’ attainment of power and influence, as reflected in their assignment to major committee member or chair positions. First, I propose that female directors are at a relative disadvantage in attaining major committee positions. Specifically, although directors in general can benefit from expertise cues to be assigned to committee positions, the benefits are less for females than males. This gap can be attenuated when females are similar to board members in terms of other demographic dimensions and when the board is demographically heterogeneous. Second, I develop predictions about how female representation on board committee positions can contribute to gender diversity on boards and firm performance. I propose that greater female representation on board committees has negative relationship with a female director’s likelihood of exit, and has positive relationship with female additions to the board and firm performance. Results were drawn from a sample of S&P; 1,500 companies during 2009 to 2019.
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