A fundamental question in corporate governance research is whether the board of directors affects firm value. Some argue that directors contribute no additional value to the firm and may even lower its value if they act only as a rubber stamp on the CEO’s decisions. However, the weight of evidence is that directors can increase value by, for example, using their experiences and connections to improve firm performance in specific settings.

Yet, largely absent from the literature is an investigation of whether individual directors possess unique characteristics that increase value, irrespective of which boards they sit on or the prevailing … Read more