Thanks, this is a good summary. I suspect there's probably something to the phenomenon (even in terms of turnaround CEOs), although I'm immensely skeptical of

Thanks, this is a good summary. I suspect there's probably something to the phenomenon (even in terms of turnaround CEOs), although I'm immensely skeptical of the people who explain this with "women are seen as caring and sensitive so they get positions where morale is bad". That narrative seems like a terrible way to explain many of the other outcomes, like preferring women for hotly-contested political races. I'm also hesitant about the "afford to turn down a crisis" narrative - certainly it could apply in many cases, but turnaround CEO for Yahoo isn't a job people were running from. Taking or rejecting it was hardly the kiss of death: saying no looks sensible, saying yes either makes your name forever or gets an "at least you tried". (Does anyone think this exit is going to actually harm Mayer's employability?) And indeed a bunch of men also took the role and failed, arguably much worse than Mayer. I do think the signaling thing is quite true. If things have been going to hell, appointing a radically different CEO shows new direction, and an appointment like Mayer is a great way to produce news stories about your new direction (with big pictures of her in them - it might be a sexist assumption but it's also a very media-friendly one). There's also a claim that it's a way for something like Yahoo to signal "See, we aren't outdated and stuffy! We did an appointment you'd never see at a boring old bank!" Rambling aside, none of the studies really sold me in either direction (replication crisis and all that) but I can see a lot of reasons this could happen in places where business as usual hasn't been working.