Corporate Governance, Board Diversity, and Firm Value: Examining Large Companies Using Panel Data Approach

Rohail Hassan and Maran Marimuthu ()
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Maran Marimuthu: Department of Management & Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia.

Economics Bulletin, 2016, vol. 36, issue 3, 1737-1750

Abstract: Many governments seek to impose diversity in the boardroom, but the consequences of doing so are inconsistent and could decrease firm performance and economies. This paper shed light on this diversity at board level topic by conceptualizing the relationships as firm value and diverse board. Reasonable theoretical arguments drawn from Upper-echelon theory and agency theory suggest that board characteristics (gender, ethnic and age diversity) may have either a positive, negative, or neutral effect on the firm value. To investigate this phenomenon relevant hypotheses are developed to test diversity at board level and its impact on firm value with the use of appropriate variables and measures. A total sample of large 60 top Malaysian non-financial companies is selected on the basis of their market capitalization from the population of 938 listed companies of Bursa, Malaysia. To investigate this empirical study, data were collected from the Datastream (Thomson Reuters) database and manually, over the period 2009 to 2013 (5 years). This study incorporates econometrics methodology on panel data analysis, which is used rigorously for hypothesis testing. The age profile of Directors has a significant positive impact on firm value. However, gender and ethnic diversity have no significant impact on firm value. The results indicate that demographic diversity at board level does have a relationship with market value.

Keywords: Gender Diversity; Ethnic Diversity; Age Profile; Board of Directors (BODs); Firm Financial Performance (ROA; ROE; Tobin's Q) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G3 M0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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