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Professional Directors and Governance Quality$

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  • Aida Sijamic Wahid
  • Kyle Welch
  • David A. Maber

Abstract

We examine professional directors—board members with no employment outside of serving as independent directors. We find that boards with a higher percentage of professional directors engage in more acquisitions, experience lower acquisition announcement returns, and exhibit lower performance‐turnover sensitivity and lower financial performance. We also examine the returns surrounding the appointment‐announcement dates of professional directors and find that firms experience significantly lower cumulative abnormal returns upon the appointment announcement of professional directors as compared to nonprofessional directors. The negative returns are primarily experienced by firms that face greater agency issues, suggesting that the market does not value professional directors for stricter monitoring. Overall, our findings do not lend support for calls to professionalize corporate boards. Administrateurs professionnels et qualité de la gouvernance Les auteures se penchent sur les administrateurs professionnels, soit ceux qui n'ont d'autre emploi que celui de siéger à des conseils d'administration à titre d'administrateurs indépendants. Elles constatent que les conseils d'administration qui comptent un pourcentage d'administrateurs professionnels plus élevé procèdent à un plus grand nombre d'acquisitions, tirent des annonces d'acquisition des rendements moins importants et affichent une sensibilité moins grande à la performance et à la rotation des administrateurs de même qu'une performance financière plus faible. Les auteures étudient également les rendements à proximité des dates d'annonce de nominations d'administrateurs professionnels et constatent que les sociétés enregistrent des rendements anormaux cumulatifs sensiblement moins élevés lorsqu'elles annoncent la nomination d'administrateurs professionnels que lorsqu'elles annoncent celle d'administrateurs non professionnels. Les rendements négatifs sont principalement enregistrés par les sociétés qui sont aux prises avec davantage de problèmes de délégation, ce qui donne à penser que le marché n'attache pas de valeur au fait que les administrateurs professionnels puissent exercer une surveillance plus rigoureuse. Dans l'ensemble, les résultats de l'étude ne justifient pas que l'on réclame la professionnalisation des conseils d'administration d'entreprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Aida Sijamic Wahid & Kyle Welch & David A. Maber, 2019. "Professional Directors and Governance Quality$," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(4), pages 2238-2282, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:coacre:v:36:y:2019:i:4:p:2238-2282
    DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12525
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Wei Jiang & Hualin Wan & Shan Zhao, 2016. "Reputation Concerns of Independent Directors: Evidence from Individual Director Voting," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 655-696.
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    Cited by:

    1. Upadhyay, Arun, 2023. "Rising board gender diversity and incentives of female directors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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