Better directors or distracted directors? An international analysis of busy boards

Stephen P. Ferris, Narayanan Jayaraman and Liao, Min-Yu (Stella)

Global Finance Journal, 2020, vol. 44, issue C

Abstract: This study examines the effect of busy directors and boards on the value of a set of non-U.S. firms from 1999 to 2012. We find that busy directors and boards are a global phenomenon, but that national culture helps to explain the cross-sectional variation in director and board busyness. Firms with busy boards exhibit lower market-to-book ratios and reduced profitability, but this effect is reversed for younger firms. We conclude that the advising ability of these networked directors is most useful for younger firms. A demographic analysis shows that multiple directorships are positively associated with firm performance and education, but negatively associated with female directors.

Keywords: Directors; Busy boards; Governance; Culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G3 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1044028317301679
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:glofin:v:44:y:2020:i:c:s1044028317301679

DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2018.05.006

Access Statistics for this article

Global Finance Journal is currently edited by Manuchehr Shahrokhi

More articles in Global Finance Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().