The dominating perspective grounded in agency theory predicts that independent boards are more effective monitoring and thereby reducing earnings management, yet the extant empirical evidence is inconclusive. We nuance relationship between board independence management by introducing two additional theories explain directors’ role on board: of personal dependence praxis theory. According to the...

This study investigates whether independent directors who are valued by their firms enhance firm performance. We develop improved metrics to build on the new notion of board hierarchy explore this question with evidence from China’s commercial banks. Our results show strong support for our proposition that directors, as reflected ranking, do matter in effectiveness and bank also find discernibl...

The positive correlation between the presence of female directors on boards and corporate performance suggests that women appear to make better directors than men. But why? Using the Defined Issues Test (DIT) instrument (Rest, 1979, 1986), 624 board directors (75% male; 25% female) were surveyed to determine their reliance on three reasoning methods (i.e., ‘Personal Interest’, ‘Normative’ and ‘...

We show that female directors have a significant impact on board inputs and firm outcomes. In a sample of US firms, we find that female directors have better attendance records than male directors, male directors have fewer attendance problems the more gender-diverse the board is, and women are more likely to join monitoring committees. These results suggest that gender-diverse boards allocate ...

We study the networks formed by the directors of the most important Swiss boards and the boards themselves for the year 2009. The networks are obtained by projection from the original bipartite graph. We highlight a number of important statistical features of those networks such as degree distribution, weight distribution, and several centrality measures as well as their interrelationships. Whi...

On July 21, 1992, six outside directors on the board of Westar Mining Ltd. resigned abruptly from the company's board of directors. Westar was a troubled mining company operating in British Columbia. In 1991, the company had lost $62.2 million, mainly as the result of a poorly performing export coal mine. While resigning from the board, the directors assured the public that there had been no wr...