The lack of diversity across gender and race of corporate boards has been one of the most significant issues in corporate board governance in recent years. Given the critical role that shareholders have in approving director appointments, we analyze voting patterns in director elections to...

Despite the global reach of their commercial activities, many multinational firms have proved slow in internationalizing their boards of directors. Based on a panel study of the internationalization of the boards of 347 non-financial firms from the Nordic countries, we find a higher fraction of...

Despite the global reach of their commercial activities, many multinational firms have proved slow in internationalizing their boards of directors. Based on a panel study of the internationalization of the boards of 347 non-financial firms from the Nordic countries, we find a higher fraction of...

The legal environment is one important determinant of corporate governance. However, within legal families, also cultural differences can explain the level of corporate governance to some extent. We analyze this relationship for the case of Switzerland. Swiss firms are mainly located in two...

In this paper we investigate the state of the art of women representation in Italian corporate boards, trying also to assess its determinants. We find that female presence still concerns the minority of companies and a small number of women. Moreover, female directorship is associated to some...

This study investigates the impact of Delaware law on the composition and size of the board of directors. Our empirical evidence reveals that Delaware firms have smaller and more independent boards than their non-Delaware counterparts. Given that we find no value-premium for firms that...

Directors from academia served on the boards of around 40% of S&P 1,500 firms over the 1998–2011 period. This paper investigates the effects of academic directors on corporate governance and firm performance. We find that companies with directors from academia are associated with higher...

Motivated by the current discussion to reform the election process of directors to the board, this paper presents a model that shows that when shareholders have direct access to proxy the quality of the board improves. This is so, because more independent directors – regarded as better...

This study examines the effect of board composition on the likelihood of corporate failure in the UK. We consider both independent and non-independent (grey) non-executive directors (NEDs) to enhance our understanding of the impact of NEDs' personal or economic ties with the firm and its...

It is well documented in economic, psychological and social literatures and the few recent studies in finance that women are more risk averse than men. The current study investigates the influence of board gender-diversity in firm risk taking in a developing market.Using a sample of Tunisian...