Contreras’ work challenges common assumptions about why women are underrepresented in boards and senior leadership. Rather than focusing on individual characteristics, such as the idea that women are too modest or overly moral, Contreras shifts attention to the “rules of the game” that govern networking. The paper is built around one idea: the same norm can be binding in different ways. From a feminist-institutionalist perspective, her research shows that networking, as an informal institution, is gender-related and has its own set of unwritten rules that dictate what constitutes appropriate and legitimate behavior. This means that whilst certain networking behaviours may be beneficial to men, the same behaviours can actually place women at a disadvantage. As a result, women develop navigational strategies to prevent such legitimacy cost by restraining their networking behaviors.
“So it is not a question of who is more modest or more moral, but of the system in which networking takes place.”
