IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v58y2019icp43-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Board executive committees, board decisions, and firm value

Author

Listed:
  • Vafeas, Nikos
  • Vlittis, Adamos

Abstract

We study board executive committees for which, despite their broad powers, there exists limited empirical evidence. We find empirically robust evidence that firms with executive committees have lower market values. We also identify a link between executive committees, CEO turnover, and investment policies. This evidence suggests that, on balance, the agency and information costs associated with executive committee use outweigh the corresponding benefits. Together with technological advancements, our findings help to explain the sharp decline in executive committee use in recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Vafeas, Nikos & Vlittis, Adamos, 2019. "Board executive committees, board decisions, and firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 43-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:58:y:2019:i:c:p:43-63
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2019.04.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119918302013
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2019.04.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dana R. Hermanson & James G. Tompkins & Rajaram Veliyath & Zhongxia (Shelly) Ye, 2012. "The Compensation Committee Process," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 666-709, September.
    2. Klein, April, 2002. "Audit committee, board of director characteristics, and earnings management," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 375-400, August.
    3. Adams, Renée B. & Ferreira, Daniel, 2009. "Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 291-309, November.
    4. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    5. Biddle, Gary C. & Hilary, Gilles & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2009. "How does financial reporting quality relate to investment efficiency?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2-3), pages 112-131, December.
    6. Lixiong Guo & Ronald W. Masulis, 2015. "Board Structure and Monitoring: New Evidence from CEO Turnovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(10), pages 2770-2811.
    7. Xie, Biao & Davidson, Wallace III & DaDalt, Peter J., 2003. "Earnings management and corporate governance: the role of the board and the audit committee," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 295-316, June.
    8. Denis, David J. & Denis, Diane K. & Sarin, Atulya, 1997. "Ownership structure and top executive turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 193-221, August.
    9. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cohen, Alma, 2005. "The costs of entrenched boards," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 409-433, November.
    10. Lucian Bebchuk & Alma Cohen & Allen Ferrell, 2009. "What Matters in Corporate Governance?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 783-827, February.
    11. Grinstein, Yaniv & Hribar, Paul, 2004. "CEO compensation and incentives: Evidence from M&A bonuses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 119-143, July.
    12. Irene Karamanou & Nikos Vafeas, 2005. "The Association between Corporate Boards, Audit Committees, and Management Earnings Forecasts: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 453-486, June.
    13. Anil Shivdasani & David Yermack, 1999. "CEO Involvement in the Selection of New Board Members: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1829-1853, October.
    14. Mobbs, Shawn, 2013. "CEOs Under Fire: The Effects of Competition from Inside Directors on Forced CEO Turnover and CEO Compensation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 669-698, June.
    15. Eliezer M. Fich & Anil Shivdasani, 2006. "Are Busy Boards Effective Monitors?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 689-724, April.
    16. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    17. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    18. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    19. Boone, Audra L. & Casares Field, Laura & Karpoff, Jonathan M. & Raheja, Charu G., 2007. "The determinants of corporate board size and composition: An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 66-101, July.
    20. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    21. Linck, James S. & Netter, Jeffry M. & Yang, Tina, 2008. "The determinants of board structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 308-328, February.
    22. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cremers, K.J. Martijn & Peyer, Urs C., 2011. "The CEO pay slice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 199-221, October.
    23. Mark R. Huson & Robert Parrino & Laura T. Starks, 2001. "Internal Monitoring Mechanisms and CEO Turnover: A Long‐Term Perspective," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2265-2297, December.
    24. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1995. "Selection corrections for panel data models under conditional mean independence assumptions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 115-132, July.
    25. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1785-1824, August.
    26. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    27. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    28. Alam, Zinat S. & Chen, Mark A. & Ciccotello, Conrad S. & Ryan, Harley E., 2014. "Does the Location of Directors Matter? Information Acquisition and Board Decisions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 131-164, February.
    29. Faleye, Olubunmi, 2007. "Classified boards, firm value, and managerial entrenchment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 501-529, February.
    30. Fauver, Larry & Hung, Mingyi & Li, Xi & Taboada, Alvaro G., 2017. "Board reforms and firm value: Worldwide evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 120-142.
    31. Yermack, David, 1996. "Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 185-211, February.
    32. Claudio Loderer & Urs Peyer, 2002. "Board Overlap, Seat Accumulation and Share Prices," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 8(2), pages 165-192, June.
    33. Bhagat, Sanjai & Bolton, Brian, 2013. "Director Ownership, Governance, and Performance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(1), pages 105-135, February.
    34. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    35. Vyacheslav Fos & Kai Li & Margarita Tsoutsoura, 2018. "Do Director Elections Matter?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1499-1531.
    36. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2003. "Boards of directors as an endogenously determined institution: a survey of the economic literature," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 7-26.
    37. Brickley, James A. & Zimmerman, Jerold L., 2010. "Corporate governance myths: Comments on Armstrong, Guay, and Weber," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 235-245, December.
    38. Deli, Daniel N. & Gillan, Stuart L., 2000. "On the demand for independent and active audit committees," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 427-445, December.
    39. Renée B. Adams & Heitor Almeida & Daniel Ferreira, 2005. "Powerful CEOs and Their Impact on Corporate Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1403-1432.
    40. Faleye, Olubunmi & Hoitash, Rani & Hoitash, Udi, 2011. "The costs of intense board monitoring," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 160-181, July.
    41. Huson, Mark R. & Malatesta, Paul H. & Parrino, Robert, 2004. "Managerial succession and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 237-275, November.
    42. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    43. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 1988. "The Determinants of Board Composition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(4), pages 589-606, Winter.
    44. Klein, April, 1998. "Firm Performance and Board Committee Structure," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 275-303, April.
    45. Reeb, David & Upadhyay, Arun, 2010. "Subordinate board structures," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 469-486, September.
    46. Balsam, Steven & Puthenpurackal, John & Upadhyay, Arun, 2016. "The Determinants and Performance Impact of Outside Board Leadership," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1325-1358, August.
    47. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    48. Anderson, Ronald C. & Bizjak, John M., 2003. "An empirical examination of the role of the CEO and the compensation committee in structuring executive pay," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1323-1348, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Olga Dodd & Bowen Zheng, 2022. "Does Board Cultural Diversity Contributed by Foreign Directors Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Australia," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Jiaying Fan & Kai Wang & Lidong Wu, 2023. "Monitoring the Type I Agency Problem or the Type II Agency Problem? Directors Appointed by Non-State Shareholders and the CEO Turnover–Performance Sensitivity," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(7), pages 2160-2189, May.
    3. Jong-Min Kim & Chulhee Jun & Hope H. Han, 2020. "Sustainable Causal Interpretation with Board Characteristics: Caveat Emptor," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    4. Ahmad, Sardar & Ullah, Subhan & Akbar, Saeed & Kodwani, Devendra & Brahma, Sanjukta, 2024. "The impact of compliance, board committees and insider CEOs on firm survival during crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    2. Drobetz, Wolfgang & von Meyerinck, Felix & Oesch, David & Schmid, Markus, 2014. "Board Industry Experience, Firm Value, and Investment Behavior," Working Papers on Finance 1401, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Dec 2015.
    3. Ahn, Seoungpil & Shrestha, Keshab, 2013. "The differential effects of classified boards on firm value," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 3993-4013.
    4. Masulis, Ronald W. & Wang, Cong & Xie, Fei, 2012. "Globalizing the boardroom—The effects of foreign directors on corporate governance and firm performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 527-554.
    5. Bradley, Michael & Chen, Dong, 2011. "Corporate governance and the cost of debt: Evidence from director limited liability and indemnification provisions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 83-107, February.
    6. Randy Beavers & Shawn Mobbs, 2020. "Director overconfidence," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 389-422, June.
    7. Lamoreaux, Phillip T. & Litov, Lubomir P. & Mauler, Landon M., 2019. "lead Independent Directors: Good governance or window dressing?," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 47-69.
    8. González, Maximiliano & Guzmán, Alexander & Pablo, Eduardo & Trujillo, María-Andrea, 2019. "Is board turnover driven by performance in family firms?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 169-186.
    9. Kathy Fogel & Liping Ma & Randall Morck, 2021. "Powerful independent directors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 935-983, December.
    10. Volonté, Christophe, 2015. "Boards: Independent and committed directors?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 25-37.
    11. Cyrus Aghamolla & Tadashi Hashimoto, 2021. "Aggressive Boards and CEO Turnover," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 437-486, May.
    12. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, July.
    13. Bill Francis & Iftekhar Hasan & Qiang Wu, 2015. "Professors in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Corporate Governance and Firm Performance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 547-581, September.
    14. Chi, Jianxin Daniel & Scott Lee, D., 2010. "The conditional nature of the value of corporate governance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 350-361, February.
    15. Anup Agrawal & Tareque Nasser, 2019. "Blockholders on Boards and CEO Compensation, Turnover and Firm Valuation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(03), pages 1-67, September.
    16. Hahn, Peter D. & Lasfer, Meziane, 2016. "Impact of foreign directors on board meeting frequency," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 295-308.
    17. Faleye, Olubunmi & Hoitash, Rani & Hoitash, Udi, 2011. "The costs of intense board monitoring," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 160-181, July.
    18. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Louca, Christodoulos & Panayides, Photis M., 2014. "Corporate governance, financial management decisions and firm performance: Evidence from the maritime industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 59-78.
    19. Hwang, Byoung-Hyoun & Kim, Seoyoung, 2009. "It pays to have friends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 138-158, July.
    20. Sugato Chakravarty & Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana & Christine Jiang, 2011. "THE CHOICE OF TRADING VENUE AND RELATIVE PRICE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL TRADING: ADRs VERSUS THE UNDERLYING SECURITIES IN THEIR LOCAL MARKETS," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 537-567, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Executive committees; Firm value; CEO turnover; Investment policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:58:y:2019:i:c:p:43-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.