Why do firms have boards?

Morten Bennedsen
Additional contact information
Morten Bennedsen: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

No 03-2002, Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: In a world where corporate boards are not required by law, I identify a governance and a distribute motive for board establishment and board composition. I investigate the presence of these motives in a sample of 23.000+ closely held corporations. Board frequency increases with more owners, if control is diluted and in larger firms. Given firms have a board, non-controlling owners are more likely to be on the board when controlling owners are more powerful. Finally, consistent with an equilibrium interpretation of strategic board establishment, I find little effect of the presence of boards on performance. I conclude that both motives are significant and discuss related corporate governance implications.

Keywords: Boards; governance; distributive conflicts; ultimate ownership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 L22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2002-03-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://openarchive.cbs.dk/cbsweb/handle/10398/7624 (application/pdf)
Full text not avaiable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2002_003

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics, Porcelaenshaven 16 A. 1.floor, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CBS Library Research Registration Team ().