IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v42y2016icp404-411.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relations between the professional backgrounds of independent directors in state-owned enterprises and corporate performance

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Yong
  • Jin, Pengjian
  • Yang, Chongsheng

Abstract

The article analyzes how the professional backgrounds of independent directors (hereinafter IDs) in state-owned enterprises (hereinafter SOEs) influence corporate performance by collecting and analyzing publicly available data on listed companies. After differentiating between the “nominal professional backgrounds” and “real professional backgrounds” of IDs, we find that more than 85% of IDs have backgrounds in “the party-state system”. Based on IDs' “real professional backgrounds”, IDs' proportion of board seats is negatively correlated with corporate performance, indicating that IDs from “the party-state system” background did not play a positive and effective role in helping companies improve their corporate performance. Additional deep, broad analysis shows that the diversification of IDs' backgrounds in SOEs is positively correlated with corporate performance. Additionally, an SOE that has dissenting IDs or IDs with “different voices” achieves better corporate performance. Therefore, reducing the number of IDs from “the party-state system” and focusing more on IDs' professionalism and background diversity should be considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Yong & Jin, Pengjian & Yang, Chongsheng, 2016. "Relations between the professional backgrounds of independent directors in state-owned enterprises and corporate performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 404-411.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:42:y:2016:i:c:p:404-411
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2015.10.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056015001616
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2015.10.011?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. Rosenstein, Stuart & Wyatt, Jeffrey G., 1990. "Outside directors, board independence, and shareholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 175-191, August.
    2. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:5:p:2281-2308 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    4. Mehran, Hamid, 1992. "Executive Incentive Plans, Corporate Control, and Capital Structure," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 539-560, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Renée B. Adams & Daniel Ferreira, 2007. "A Theory of Friendly Boards," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 217-250, February.
    7. Erkens, David H. & Hung, Mingyi & Matos, Pedro, 2012. "Corporate governance in the 2007–2008 financial crisis: Evidence from financial institutions worldwide," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 389-411.
    8. Baysinger, Barry D & Butler, Henry N, 1985. "Corporate Governance and the Board of Directors: Performance Effects of Changes in Board Composition," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 101-124, Spring.
    9. Brickley, James A. & Coles, Jeffrey L. & Terry, Rory L., 1994. "Outside directors and the adoption of poison pills," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 371-390, June.
    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. Cheng Guping & Muhammad Safdar Sial & Peng Wan & Alina Badulescu & Daniel Badulescu & Talles Vianna Brugni, 2020. "Do Board Gender Diversity and Non-Executive Directors Affect CSR Reporting? Insight from Agency Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-25, October.
    2. Tyrone T. Lin & Tsai-Ling Liu, 2021. "An Optimal Compensation Agency Model for Sustainability under the Risk Aversion Utility Perspective," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Su, Kun & Yang, Ruohan & Cui, Qian & Wang, Tianfu, 2024. "The geographic distance of independent directors and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Liu, Yu, 2020. "The comparative and interactive effects of political, academic and financial directors," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 546-565.
    5. Maria Camila De-La-Hoz & Carlos Pombo & Rodrigo Taborda, 2018. "Does board diversity affect institutional investor preferences? Evidence from Latin America," Documentos CEDE 15991, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    6. Ni, Yensen & Huang, Paoyu & Chen, Yuhsin, 2019. "Board structure, considerable capital, and stock price overreaction informativeness in terms of technical indicators," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 514-528.
    7. Shang, Duo & Yuan, Dongliang & Li, Dehui & Lin, Qi, 2023. "Independent directors’ geographic distance, high-speed railway, and corporate cash holdings," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Zhang, Tianyu, 2023. "Peer effects in R&D investment based on interlock network: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Lei Yu & Daojuan Wang & Qi Wang, 2018. "The Effect of Independent Director Reputation Incentives on Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, September.

    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. M. Andrew Fields & Phyllis Y. Keys, 2003. "The Emergence of Corporate Governance from Wall St. to Main St.: Outside Directors, Board Diversity, Earnings Management, and Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-24, February.
    2. Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan, 2021. "The effect of board composition and managerial pay on Saudi firm performance," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 693-758, August.
    3. Etienne Redor & Magnus Blomkvist, 2021. "Do all inside and affiliated directors hold the same value for shareholders?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 882-895.
    4. Premepeh, kwadwo Boateng & Odartei-Mills, Eugene, 2015. "Corporate governance structure and shareholder wealth maximisation," MPRA Paper 68087, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bill B. Francis & Iftekhar Hasan & Qiang Wu, 2012. "Do corporate boards matter during the current financial crisis?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(2), pages 39-52, April.
    6. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, July.
    7. 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.
    8. Etienne Redor, 2021. "Do all inside and affiliated directors hold the same value for shareholders?," Post-Print hal-03290640, HAL.
    9. Attiya Y. Javid & Robina Iqbal, 2010. "Corporate Governance in Pakistan: Corporate Valuation, Ownership and Financing," PIDE-Working Papers 2010:57, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    10. Ahmed Bouteska, 2020. "Do Board Characteristics Affect Bank Performance? Evidence from the Eurozone," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(6), pages 535-548, October.
    11. Eugenio Zubeltzu-Jaka & Eduardo Ortas & Igor Álvarez-Etxeberria, 2019. "Independent Directors and Organizational Performance: New Evidence from A Meta-Analytic Regression Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-25, December.
    12. Sandvik, Jason, 2020. "Board monitoring, director connections, and credit quality☆," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Rebeiz, Karim S., 2018. "Relationship between boardroom independence and corporate performance: Reflections and perspectives," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 83-90.
    14. Mertzanis, Charilaos & Basuony, Mohamed A.K. & Mohamed, Ehab K.A., 2019. "Social institutions, corporate governance and firm-performance in the MENA region," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 75-96.
    15. Enya He & David W. Sommer, 2010. "Separation of Ownership and Control: Implications for Board Composition," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 265-295, June.
    16. Panagiotis Staikouras & Christos Staikouras & Maria-Eleni Agoraki, 2007. "The effect of board size and composition on European bank performance," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-27, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Doyoung Kim, 2012. "On the determinants of director additions and removals," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(10), pages 1219-1233, April.
    19. Dahya, Jay & Golubov, Andrey & Petmezas, Dimitris & Travlos, Nickolaos G., 2019. "Governance mandates, outside directors, and acquirer performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 218-238.
    20. Salim Chahine & Assem Safieddine, 2011. "Is corporate governance different for the Lebanese banking system?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 15(2), pages 207-226, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    State-owned enterprises (SOEs); Independent directors (IDs); Corporate performance; Corporate governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    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:reveco:v:42:y:2016:i:c:p:404-411. 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/inca/620165 .

    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.