Understanding the Board of Directors after the Financial Crisis

Understanding the Board of Directors after the Financial Crisis

Joseph McCahery, Erik Vermeulen

Series number :

Serial Number: 
229/2013

Date posted :

October 01 2013

Last revised :

October 28 2013
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • board of directors • 
  • Board Insulation • 
  • Corporate governance • 
  • corporate law • 
  • Gender Diversity • 
  • innovation • 
  • Stock Market Performance • 
  • value creation • 
  • venture capital

There are numerous studies on the effectiveness of boards that primarily focus on legal formalities, including gender diversity, board size, remuneration, board evaluation and the role of the chairman of the board.

While attempting to design a one-size-fits-all framework, scholars approaching board independence from an agency cost perspective have been less concerned with analyzing board structures that contribute to strategic decisionmaking and corporate performance. We examine the factors and board strategies that are associated with value creation and innovation by analyzing the composition of highperformance and high-growth companies. The paper shows that venture capitalists, with their specific expertise and experience, continue to play an important role as independent board members in the post-IPO period. We specifically investigate the importance of diversity, showing that there are significant differences between the companies in terms of age, gender diversity and business expertise (which is dependent on the stage in the company life-cycle).

Authors

Research Member
Tilburg University Faculty of Law and Tilburg Law and Economics Center