IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v158y2019i1d10.1007_s10551-017-3769-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Board Expertise and Networked Boards Affect Environmental Performance?

Author

Listed:
  • Swarnodeep Homroy

    (University of Groningen)

  • Aurelie Slechten

    (Lancaster University)

Abstract

We examine the resource provision role of the board of directors in ensuring substantive corporate sustainability practices. Specifically, we examine two channels of resource provision (i.e., the presence of non-executive directors with previous experience in environmental issues—EEDs—and network connections of EEDs) that can affect a firm’s ethical and environmental behavior. Using greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from FTSE 350 firms, as a measure of environmental performance, we show that the presence of EEDs on the board is associated with lower GHG emissions. Further, firms with better-networked EEDs have better environmental performance. A possible mechanism is that firms with EEDs invest more in environmental technology. These results suggest that, in addition to the traditional role of shareholder value maximization, the board of directors also caters to the interests of wider stakeholders of the firm by facilitating substantive ethical practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Swarnodeep Homroy & Aurelie Slechten, 2019. "Do Board Expertise and Networked Boards Affect Environmental Performance?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 269-292, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3769-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3769-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3769-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3769-y?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. Vidhi Chhaochharia & Yaniv Grinstein, 2009. "CEO Compensation and Board Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 231-261, February.
    2. Gomes-Casseres, Benjamin & Hagedoorn, John & Jaffe, Adam B., 2006. "Do alliances promote knowledge flows?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 5-33, April.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Hwang, Byoung-Hyoun & Kim, Seoyoung, 2009. "It pays to have friends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 138-158, July.
    6. Shameek Konar & Mark A. Cohen, 2001. "Does The Market Value Environmental Performance?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 281-289, May.
    7. Kent Walker & Fang Wan, 2012. "The Harm of Symbolic Actions and Green-Washing: Corporate Actions and Communications on Environmental Performance and Their Financial Implications," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 109(2), pages 227-242, August.
    8. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "The State of Corporate Governance Research," Springer Books, in: Sabri Boubaker & Bang Dang Nguyen & Duc Khuong Nguyen (ed.), Corporate Governance, edition 127, pages 325-346, Springer.
    9. Ufuk Akcigit & Murat Celik & Daron Acemoglu, 2014. "Young, Restless and Creative: Openness to Disruption and Creative Innovations," 2014 Meeting Papers 377, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger & Low, Angie & Stulz, René M., 2010. "Why do firms appoint CEOs as outside directors?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 12-32, July.
    11. Anzhela Knyazeva & Diana Knyazeva & Ronald W. Masulis, 2013. "The Supply of Corporate Directors and Board Independence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1561-1605.
    12. Eliezer M. Fich & Anil Shivdasani, 2006. "Are Busy Boards Effective Monitors?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 689-724, April.
    13. Fisher-Vanden, Karen & Thorburn, Karin S., 2011. "Voluntary corporate environmental initiatives and shareholder wealth," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 430-445.
    14. Anton, W.R.Q.Wilma Rose Q. & Deltas, George & Khanna, Madhu, 2004. "Incentives for environmental self-regulation and implications for environmental performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 632-654, July.
    15. Mark J. Garmaise, 2003. "Informal Financial Networks: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1007-1040.
    16. Burak Güner, A. & Malmendier, Ulrike & Tate, Geoffrey, 2008. "Financial expertise of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 323-354, May.
    17. Eitan Goldman & Jörg Rocholl & Jongil So, 2009. "Do Politically Connected Boards Affect Firm Value?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2331-2360, June.
    18. Eliezer M. Fich, 2005. "Are Some Outside Directors Better than Others? Evidence from Director Appointments by Fortune 1000 Firms," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(5), pages 1943-1972, September.
    19. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    20. Larcker, David F. & So, Eric C. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2013. "Boardroom centrality and firm performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 225-250.
    21. Yael V. Hochberg & Alexander Ljungqvist & Yang Lu, 2007. "Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 251-301, February.
    22. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    23. Judith L. Walls & Pascual Berrone & Phillip H. Phan, 2012. "Corporate governance and environmental performance: is there really a link?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(8), pages 885-913, August.
    24. Brian K. Boyd, 1994. "Board control and ceo compensation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 335-344, June.
    25. Byrd, John W. & Hickman, Kent A., 1992. "Do outside directors monitor managers? *1: Evidence from tender offer bids," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 195-221, October.
    26. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2008. "Revisiting the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 303-327.
    27. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2008. "Boards: Does one size fit all," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 329-356, February.
    28. Khaled Elsayed, 2006. "Reexamining the Expected Effect of Available Resources and Firm Size on Firm Environmental Orientation: An Empirical Study of UK Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 297-308, May.
    29. John M. Stevens & H. Kevin Steensma & David A. Harrison & Philip L. Cochran, 2005. "Symbolic or substantive document? The influence of ethics codes on financial executives' decisions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 181-195, February.
    30. Ronald W. Masulis & Shawn Mobbs, 2011. "Are All Inside Directors the Same? Evidence from the External Directorship Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 823-872, June.
    31. Robert D. Klassen & Curtis P. McLaughlin, 1996. "The Impact of Environmental Management on Firm Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(8), pages 1199-1214, August.
    32. Nishant Dass & Omesh Kini & Vikram Nanda & Bunyamin Onal & Jun Wang, 2014. "Board Expertise: Do Directors from Related Industries Help Bridge the Information Gap?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1533-1592.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Swarnodeep Homroy & Aurelie Cecile Dominique Slechten, 2016. "Board expertise, networked boards and environmental performance," Working Papers 140306795, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    2. Etienne Redor, 2016. "Board attributes and shareholder wealth in mergers and acquisitions: a survey of the literature," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 20(4), pages 789-821, December.
    3. Masulis, Ronald W. & Zhang, Emma Jincheng, 2019. "How valuable are independent directors? Evidence from external distractions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 226-256.
    4. Volonté, Christophe, 2015. "Boards: Independent and committed directors?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 25-37.
    5. Cavaco, Sandra & Crifo, Patricia & Rebérioux, Antoine & Roudaut, Gwenael, 2017. "Independent directors: Less informed but better selected than affiliated board members?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 106-121.
    6. Upadhyay, Arun & Öztekin, Özde, 2021. "What matters more in board independence? Form or substance: Evidence from influential CEO-directors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Randy Beavers & Shawn Mobbs, 2020. "Director overconfidence," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 389-422, June.
    8. Masulis, Ronald W. & Mobbs, Shawn, 2014. "Independent director incentives: Where do talented directors spend their limited time and energy?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 406-429.
    9. Balsmeier, Benjamin & Buchwald, Achim & Stiebale, Joel, 2014. "Outside directors on the board and innovative firm performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1800-1815.
    10. 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.
    11. Nemmara K. Chidambaran & Yun Liu & Nagpurnanand Prabhala, 2022. "Director diversity and inclusion: At the table but in the game?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 193-225, March.
    12. Bu, Luofan & Chan, Kam C. & Choi, Ahrum & Zhou, Gaoguang, 2021. "Talented inside directors and corporate social responsibility: A tale of two roles," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    13. Ching-Hung Chang & Qingqing Wu, 2021. "Board Networks and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3618-3654, June.
    14. Cai, Xiangshang & Gao, Ning & Garrett, Ian & Xu, Yan, 2020. "Are CEOs judged on their companies' social reputation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Buchwald, Achim, 2015. "Competition, outside directors and executive turnover: Implications for corporate governance in the EU," DICE Discussion Papers 174, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    16. 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.
    17. Adams, Mike & Jiang, Wei, 2016. "Do outside directors influence the financial performance of risk-trading firms? Evidence from the United Kingdom (UK) insurance industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 36-51.
    18. Marie Lalanne, 2023. "Network‐based appointments and board diversity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(358), pages 409-452, April.
    19. Gopalan, Radhakrishnan & Gormley, Todd A. & Kalda, Ankit, 2021. "It’s not so bad: Director bankruptcy experience and corporate risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 261-292.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Director expertise; Director networks; Emissions; Environmental performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G39 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Other
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General

    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:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3769-y. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.