Purpose: This paper examines whether increased director workloads are benefiting firms or are causing directors to become too busy, resulting in lower director attendance and weaker firm performance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper conducts empirical analysis of the relationships...

In this paper, we highlight the existence of multi-founder firms, which were founded by multiple individuals (with no family connections) who are still actively involved in the firm as directors and/or managers (e.g., Google and Yahoo). These firms provide a unique setting to determine whether...

Around the world, policy makers are mandating gender quotas for boards of publicly-traded firms. Since the benefits and costs of these quotas accrue to shareholders, it is important to see how they react to the appointment of female directors. Using data on mandatory announcements of new...

International studies suggest that directors with political connections provide significant benefits to shareholders. Yet, whether this is the case in the political and business environment in Australia is unknown. In this study, we examine the prevalence of former politicians as non-executive...

While prior studies document the benefits of political connections in emerging markets, their value in developed markets is less certain. In this study, we examine the types of firms that have directors with political and government connections on their boards and the value of these connections...

All directors, not only those with multiple directorships, are potentially too busy to fulfill their directorial duties. Thus, as a general test of director busyness, we examine how changes in workloads (board and committee meeting frequency) affect the attendance practices of CEOs and...