IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/ijbmjn/v16y2023i2p1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Cognitive Approach to Diversity: Investigating the Impact of Board of Directors’ Educational and Functional Heterogeneity on Innovation Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Ramzi Belkacemi
  • Kamal Bouzinab
  • Andrew Papadopoulos

Abstract

Boards’ diversity has been studied mainly through the prism of ethics, which translated into a focus on characteristics such as gender and ethnicity. However, when the goal is to explain organizational outcomes, the cognitive approach seems more pertinent. Thus, rooted in a resource dependency perspective, this paper investigates the potential impact of directors’ deep level diversity (functional and educational diversity) on innovation performance based on an international sample of 97 firms for a total of 1027 directors. The findings highlight the negative effect of functional diversity (measured by diversity in the sectors of expertise), and on the opposite, the positive impact of educational diversity (measured by diversity in the fields of study) on innovation performance. This study also shows that the environment in which organizations evolve, both at the internal and external level, is crucial when it comes to innovation performance. These results are robust in that they remain consistent after addressing some potential endogeneity issues and have critical implications for both the professional and academic world.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramzi Belkacemi & Kamal Bouzinab & Andrew Papadopoulos, 2023. "A Cognitive Approach to Diversity: Investigating the Impact of Board of Directors’ Educational and Functional Heterogeneity on Innovation Performance," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 16(2), pages 1-1, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:ijbmjn:v:16:y:2023:i:2:p:1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/download/0/0/44557/47028
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/view/0/44557
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    2. David Aboody & Baruch Lev, 2000. "Information Asymmetry, R&D, and Insider Gains," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2747-2766, December.
    3. Stephen Bear & Noushi Rahman & Corinne Post, 2010. "The Impact of Board Diversity and Gender Composition on Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Reputation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(2), pages 207-221, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guo, Bing & Pérez-Castrillo, David & Toldrà-Simats, Anna, 2019. "Firms’ innovation strategy under the shadow of analyst coverage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 456-483.
    2. Ani Manakyan Mathers & Bin Wang & Xiaohong (Sara) Wang, 2020. "Shareholder coordination and corporate innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5-6), pages 730-759, May.
    3. Miller, Steve & Qiu, Bin & Wang, Bin & Yang, Tina, 2022. "Monitoring institutional ownership and corporate innovation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 144-165.
    4. Chen, Ru & Tong, Jamie Yixing & Zhang, Feida (Frank) & Zhou, Gaoguang (Stephen), 2021. "Do female directors enhance R&D performance?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 253-275.
    5. Cui, Di & Ding, Mingfa & Han, Yikai & Suardi, Sandy, 2023. "Regulation-induced financial constraints, carbon emission and corporate innovation: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    6. Zhong, Rong (Irene), 2018. "Transparency and firm innovation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 67-93.
    7. Rania Béji & Ouidad Yousfi & Abdelwahed Omri, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance: A cognitive approach," Post-Print hal-03144756, HAL.
    8. Mamun, Abdullah & Mishra, Dev & Zhan, Lei, 2021. "The value of intangible capital transfer in mergers," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    9. Hao, Jing, 2023. "Retail investor attention and corporate innovation in the big data era," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    10. Nguyen, Lily & Vu, Le & Yin, Xiangkang, 2020. "The undesirable effect of audit quality: Evidence from firm innovation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    11. Reif, Christiane & Rexhäuser, Sascha, 2015. "Good enough! Are socially responsible companies the more successful environmental innovators?," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Lili Dai & Rui Shen & Bohui Zhang, 2021. "Does the media spotlight burn or spur innovation?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 343-390, March.
    13. Rania Beji & Ouidad Yousfi & Nadia Loukil & Abdelwahed Omri, 2021. "Board Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility: Empirical Evidence from France," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 133-155, September.
    14. Rania B'eji & Ouidad Yousfi & Abdelwahed Omri, 2021. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance: A cognitive approach," Papers 2102.09218, arXiv.org.
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2015. "Do Private Equity Owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 442-446, May.
    16. Nurlan Orazalin & Mady Baydauletov, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility strategy and corporate environmental and social performance: The moderating role of board gender diversity," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1664-1676, July.
    17. Herrmann, Roland & Schröck, Rebecca, 2011. "Determinanten des Innovationserfolgs: eine Analyse mit Scannerdaten für den deutschen Joghurtmarkt," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 60(03), pages 1-16, August.
    18. Benkraiem, Ramzi & Boubaker, Sabri & Brinette, Souad & Khemiri, Sabrina, 2021. "Board feminization and innovation through corporate venture capital investments: The moderating effects of independence and management skills," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    19. Lu, Yun & Ntim, Collins G. & Zhang, Qingjing & Li, Pingli, 2022. "Board of directors’ attributes and corporate outcomes: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Liliana Meza-González & Jaime Marie Sepulveda, 2019. "The impact of competition with China in the US market on innovation in Mexican manufacturing firms," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-21, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:ijbmjn:v:16:y:2023:i:2:p:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.