How STEM women achieve objective career success through networking : a competence signal perspective

Purpose- Integrating signaling theory and networking literature, this article theorizes how STEM women may overcome barriers resulting from low competence gender stereotypes to realize career achievements. Approach- The article develops a conceptual model delineating the process through which STEM women achieve objective career success by strategic networking according to how they evaluate their competence signal strength. Findings- When STEM women evaluate their competence signal strength to be weak (strong), they engage in more network-deepening (network-broadening) actions. This signal-based strategic networking tends to occur when STEM women experience an internal locus of control at work. Network-deepening strategies enhance STEM women’s performance when their networking contacts’ knowledge is deep or broad. Network-broadening strategies enhance STEM women’s performance when their networking contacts have an egalitarian gender-role attitude. Contexts with organizational merit-based reward practices further help translate STEM women’s high performance resulting from signal-based strategic networking into objective career success. Originality- Our conceptual framing elaborates how signal-based strategic networking helps STEM women overcome structural barriers to achieve career success. Our theorizing provides a holistic three-stage view of signaling by unpacking how signalers, signal attributes, receivers and environmental factors jointly shape the occurrence and effectiveness of signaling actions.