Authors
David M Reeb, Wanli Zhao
Publication date
2013/7/1
Journal
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
Volume
32
Issue
4
Pages
191-212
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
Conventional wisdom regarding board effectiveness emphasizes the role of board composition and incentives in alleviating conflicts of interest. We argue that board capital, however, may be a more important aspect of board efficacy since directors are the highest level agents of shareholders, meet infrequently, and shareholders have limited recourse for poor decision-making. In contrast, shareholders and the SEC can sue/prosecute directors for conflicts of interest or bias. One role of the board involves determining the depth and degree of the firm’s financial disclosures. To test the idea that high capital boards seek to provide greater disclosure quality to investors, we manually collect data on director attributes and apply factor analysis to measure the networking, educational, and experience capital of the board. The results indicate that board capital is positively related to disclosure quality, with differing key …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
DM Reeb, W Zhao - Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 2013