A large literature documents that women are different from men in their choices and preferences, but little is known about gender differences in the boardroom. If women must be like men to break the ...glass ceiling, we might expect gender differences to disappear among directors. Using a large survey of directors, we show that female and male directors differ systematically in their core values and risk attitudes, but in ways that differ from gender differences in the general population. These results are robust to controlling for differences in observable characteristics. Consistent with findings for the population, female directors are more benevolent and universally concerned but less power oriented than male directors. However, in contrast to findings for the population, they are less tradition and security oriented than their male counterparts. They are also more risk loving than male directors. Thus, having a woman on the board need not lead to more risk-averse decision making.
This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, Teck Ho, and Terrance Odean, special issue editors.
Can female directors help save economies and the firms on whose boards they sit? Policy-makers seem to think so. Numerous countries have implemented boardroom gender policies because of business case ...arguments. While women may be the key to healthy economies, I argue that more research needs to be done to understand the benefits of board diversity. The literature faces three main challenges: data limitations, selection and causal inference. Recognizing and dealing with these challenges is important for developing informed research and policy. Negative stereotypes may be one reason women are underrepresented in management. It is not clear that promoting them on the basis of positive stereotypes does them, or society, a service.
A Theory of Friendly Boards ADAMS, RENÉE B.; FERREIRA, DANIEL
The Journal of finance (New York),
February 2007, Letnik:
62, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We analyze the consequences of the board's dual role as advisor as well as monitor of management. Given this dual role, the CEO faces a trade-off in disclosing information to the board: If he reveals ...his information, he receives better advice; however, an informed board will also monitor him more intensively. Since an independent board is a tougher monitor, the CEO may be reluctant to share information with it. Thus, management-friendly boards can be optimal. Using the insights from the model, we analyze the differences between sole and dual board systems. We highlight several policy implications of our analysis.
The subprime crisis highlights how little we know about bank governance. This paper addresses a long-standing gap in the literature by analyzing the relationship between board governance and ...performance using a sample of banking firm data that spans 34years. We find that board independence is not related to performance, as measured by a proxy for Tobin’s Q. However, board size is positively related to performance. Our results are not driven by M&A activity. But, we provide new evidence that increases in board size due to additions of directors with subsidiary directorships may add value as BHC complexity increases. We conclude that governance regulation should take unique features of bank governance into account.
Director skill sets Adams, Renée B.; Akyol, Ali C.; Verwijmeren, Patrick
Journal of financial economics,
12/2018, Letnik:
130, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Directors are not one-dimensional. We characterize their skill sets by exploiting Regulation S-K's 2009 requirement that U.S. firms must disclose the experience, qualifications, attributes, or skills ...that led the nominating committee to choose an individual as a director. We then examine how skills cluster on and across boards. Factor analysis indicates that the main dimension along which boards vary is in the diversity of skills of their directors. We find that firm performance increases when director skill sets exhibit more commonality.
We show that female directors have a significant impact on board inputs and firm outcomes. In a sample of US firms, we find that female directors have better attendance records than male directors, ...male directors have fewer attendance problems the more gender-diverse the board is, and women are more likely to join monitoring committees. These results suggest that gender-diverse boards allocate more effort to monitoring. Accordingly, we find that chief executive officer turnover is more sensitive to stock performance and directors receive more equity-based compensation in firms with more gender-diverse boards. However, the average effect of gender diversity on firm performance is negative. This negative effect is driven by companies with fewer takeover defenses. Our results suggest that mandating gender quotas for directors can reduce firm value for well-governed firms.
This paper is a survey of the literature on boards of directors, with an emphasis on research done subsequent to the Benjamin E. Hermalin and Michael S. Weisbach (2003) survey. The two questions most ...asked about boards are what determines their makeup and what determines their actions? These questions are fundamentally intertwined, which complicates the study of boards because makeup and actions are jointly endogenous. A focus of this survey is how the literature, theoretical as well as empirical, deals—or on occasions fails to deal—with this complication. We suggest that many studies of boards can best be interpreted as joint statements about both the director-selection process and the effect of board composition on board actions and firm performance.
High proportions of autistic children suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, implying a link between autism and abnormalities in gut microbial functions. Increasing evidence from recent ...high-throughput sequencing analyses indicates that disturbances in composition and diversity of gut microbiome are associated with various disease conditions. However, microbiome-level studies on autism are limited and mostly focused on pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, here we aimed to define systemic changes in gut microbiome associated with autism and autism-related GI problems. We recruited 20 neurotypical and 20 autistic children accompanied by a survey of both autistic severity and GI symptoms. By pyrosequencing the V2/V3 regions in bacterial 16S rDNA from fecal DNA samples, we compared gut microbiomes of GI symptom-free neurotypical children with those of autistic children mostly presenting GI symptoms. Unexpectedly, the presence of autistic symptoms, rather than the severity of GI symptoms, was associated with less diverse gut microbiomes. Further, rigorous statistical tests with multiple testing corrections showed significantly lower abundances of the genera Prevotella, Coprococcus, and unclassified Veillonellaceae in autistic samples. These are intriguingly versatile carbohydrate-degrading and/or fermenting bacteria, suggesting a potential influence of unusual diet patterns observed in autistic children. However, multivariate analyses showed that autism-related changes in both overall diversity and individual genus abundances were correlated with the presence of autistic symptoms but not with their diet patterns. Taken together, autism and accompanying GI symptoms were characterized by distinct and less diverse gut microbial compositions with lower levels of Prevotella, Coprococcus, and unclassified Veillonellaceae.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We document that women are less represented on corporate boards in Finance and more traditional STEM industry sectors. Even after controlling for differences in firm and country characteristics, ...average diversity in these sectors is 24% lower than the mean. Our findings suggest that well-documented gender differences in STEM university enrolments and occupations have long-term consequences for female business leadership. The leadership gap in Finance and STEM may be difficult to eliminate using blanket boardroom diversity policies. Diversity policies are also likely to have a different impact on firms in these sectors than in non-STEM sectors.
Theoretical models of groups suggest that sub-group usage can affect communication among members and group decision-making. To examine the trade-offs from forming sub-groups, we assemble a detailed ...dataset on corporate boards (groups) and committees (sub-groups). Boards have increasingly used committees formally staffed entirely by outside directors. Our data show that twenty-five percent of all director meetings occurred in such committees in 1996; this increased to 45% by 2010. Our evidence suggests that granting formal authority to such committees can impair communication and decision-making. Sub-groups are relatively understudied, but our results suggest that they play an important role in group functioning and corporate governance.
PDF
