IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v41y1998i1p275-303.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Firm Performance and Board Committee Structure

Author

Listed:
  • Klein, April

Abstract

This article demonstrates a linkage between firm performance and board composition by examining the committee structure of boards and the directors' roles within these committees. Consistent with previous studies, I find little association between firm performance and overall board composition. However, by going into the inner workings of the board via board committee composition, I am able to find significant ties between firm performance and how boards are structured. First, a positive relation is found between the percentage of inside directors on finance and investment committees and accounting and stock market performance measures. Next, firms significantly increasing inside director representation on these two committees experience significantly higher contemporaneous stock returns and return on investments than firms decreasing the percentage of inside directors on these committees. These findings are consistent with Fama and Jensen's assertion that inside directors provide valuable information to boards about the firms' long-term investment decisions. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:1:p:275-303
    DOI: 10.1086/467391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467391
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467391?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. 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.
    2. Strickland, Deon & Wiles, Kenneth W. & Zenner, Marc, 1996. "A requiem for the USA Is small shareholder monitoring effective?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 319-338, February.
    3. Michael C. Jensen, 2010. "The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 22(1), pages 43-58, January.
    4. Yakov Amihud & Baruch Lev, 1981. "Risk Reduction as a Managerial Motive for Conglomerate Mergers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 605-617, Autumn.
    5. Shivdasani, Anil, 1993. "Board composition, ownership structure, and hostile takeovers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-3), pages 167-198, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    8. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation," Scholarly Articles 29407535, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Kaplan, Steven N. & Reishus, David, 1990. "Outside directorships and corporate performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 389-410, October.
    10. Gilson, Stuart C., 1990. "Bankruptcy, boards, banks, and blockholders : Evidence on changes in corporate ownership and control when firms default," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 355-387, October.
    11. Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, 1980. "Takeover Bids, the Free-Rider Problem, and the Theory of the Corporation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 42-64, Spring.
    12. 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.
    13. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    14. 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.
    15. McConnell, John J. & Servaes, Henri, 1990. "Additional evidence on equity ownership and corporate value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 595-612, October.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P. & Rayburn, Judy Dawson, 1987. "Firm size and the information content of prices with respect to earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 111-138, July.
    19. Wahal, Sunil, 1996. "Pension Fund Activism and Firm Performance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-23, March.
    20. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    21. Smith, Michael P, 1996. "Shareholder Activism by Institutional Investors: Evidence for CalPERS," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 227-252, March.
    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. 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.
    2. Helen Short & Kevin Keasey & Mike Wright & Alison Hull, 1999. "Corporate governance: from accountability to enterprise," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 337-352.
    3. Winson Chan & David Emanuel, 2011. "Board governance and acquirers’ returns: A study of Australian acquisitions," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 36(2), pages 174-199, August.
    4. Szilagyi, P.G., 2007. "Corporate governance and the agency costs of debt and outside equity," Other publications TiSEM 9520d40a-224f-43a8-9bf9-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Callahan, William T. & Millar, James A. & Schulman, Craig, 2003. "An analysis of the effect of management participation in director selection on the long-term performance of the firm," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 169-181, March.
    6. McKnight, Phillip J. & Weir, Charlie, 2009. "Agency costs, corporate governance mechanisms and ownership structure in large UK publicly quoted companies: A panel data analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 139-158, May.
    7. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, December.
    8. Vafeas, Nikos, 1999. "Board meeting frequency and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 113-142, July.
    9. Hossain, Mahmud & Prevost, Andrew K. & Rao, Ramesh P., 2001. "Corporate governance in New Zealand: The effect of the 1993 Companies Act on the relation between board composition and firm performance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 119-145, April.
    10. 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.
    11. Steve Lin & Peter F. Pope & Steven Young, 2003. "Stock Market Reaction to the Appointment of Outside Directors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3‐4), pages 351-382, April.
    12. Bradley W. Benson & Wallace N. Davidson III & Hongxia Wang & Dan L. Worrell, 2011. "Deviations from Expected Stakeholder Management, Firm Value, and Corporate Governance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 40(1), pages 39-81, March.
    13. Rizzotti, Davide & Greco, Angela M., 2013. "Determinants of Board of Statutory Auditor and Internal Control Committee Diligence: A Comparison Between Audit Committee and the Corresponding Italian Committees," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 84-110.
    14. ATM Adnan & Nisar Ahmed, 2019. "The Transformation Of The Corporate Governance Model: A Literature Review," Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 8(3), pages 7-47.
    15. Ana I. Fernández & Silvia Gómez-Ansón & Carlos Fernández-Ansón, 1998. "El papel supervisor del consejo de administración sobre la actuación gerencial. Evidencia para el caso español," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 22(3), pages 501-516, September.
    16. Prevost, Andrew K. & Rao, Ramesh P. & Hossain, Mahmud, 2002. "Determinants of board composition in New Zealand: a simultaneous equations approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 373-397, November.
    17. Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Why Do Some CEOs Work for a One-Dollary Salary?," Working Paper Series 2011-7, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Cornett, Marcia Millon & Marcus, Alan J. & Saunders, Anthony & Tehranian, Hassan, 2007. "The impact of institutional ownership on corporate operating performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1771-1794, June.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:1:p:275-303. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.