The literature on corporate governance has highlighted the importance of board characteristics related to firm innovation. However, empirical findings have not been totally conclusive, and some seem contradictory. Adopting a new perspective, we have tried to help resolve the puzzle using a...

This paper elaborates whether women bringing their diversity, cross-cultural awareness and transformational leadership skills to corporate boards offer strategic advantages for firms. In the analysis the effect of women in the board room on innovation activity and corporate firm performance as...

We investigate the influence of non-executive outside directors on firms' innovative performance for a sample of 1,393 listed firms in the EU - 15 member states plus Norway and Switzerland in the period 2005 to 2010. Our results show that the fraction of non-executive outside directors on the...

Many firms tout their commitment to diversity, sometimes appointing racial minorities to their board of directors. We find that firms with more minority directors are associated with greater innovation output. Using patent-inventor information, we uncover an important yet previously...

Previous studies on the effect of corporate governance on firm innovation shows mixed outcomes, while some reveal statistically significant effects, others show non-significant effects. Hence, this study aims at shedding more light on this unresolved phenomenon and fill this gap in literature by...

This paper studies whether board connectedness affects corporate innovation. We find that well-connected boards have a positive impact on innovation activities and quality. The effect is stronger when firms have higher advising demand or face more severe agency problems. We show that the...

We find that classified board in the M&A target firm is positively related to the target shareholder value, but only for firms with both intensive R&D investment and strong external governance. We also find that firms with classified board exhibit superior quality innovation when they have both...

We show evidence that female board representation is associated with greater innovative success, and thus enhances firm performance in innovation-intensive industries. Firms with female directors tend to invest more in innovation and obtain more patents and citations for given R&D expenditures....

We examine whether interlocking boards of directors help to foster knowledge spillovers between firms. To capture exogenous variation in board interlocks, we use a novel identification strategy based on schedule conflicts between firms’ annual shareholder meeting dates. For a variety of...

This paper investigates the effect of superstar CEOs on their competitors. Exploiting shocks to CEO status due to prestigious media awards, we document a significant positive stock market performance of competitors of superstar CEOs subsequent to the award. The effect is more pronounced for...