Outside directors, board interlocks and firm performance: Empirical evidence from Colombian business groups

We investigate the relation of board structure through the appointments of outside directors and the role of busy directors on firm return on assets within an environment of no regulation for privately held firms and voluntary adoption of corporate best practices for security issuers with family con...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Pombo C., Gutiérrez Ramírez, Luis Hernando
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2011
País:Colombia
Recursos:Universidad del Rosario
Repositório:Repositorio EdocUR - U. Rosario
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:repository.urosario.edu.co:10336/22339
Acesso em linha:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconbus.2011.01.002
https://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/22339
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Board interlocks
Busy directors
Colombian corporations
Control contestability
Corporate governance
Firm performance
Outside directors
Descrição
Resumo:We investigate the relation of board structure through the appointments of outside directors and the role of busy directors on firm return on assets within an environment of no regulation for privately held firms and voluntary adoption of corporate best practices for security issuers with family controlling blockholders. This study relies on a sample of an average of 335 firms per year for the 1996-2006 period, where 244 are private firms and 285 are affiliated to one of the seven largest non-financial business groups in the country. Five of these groups were, in 2006, still family-controlled. We find a positive relation between both the ratio of outside directors, and the degree of board interlocks, with firm return-on-assets. Outside busy directors turned out to be key drivers of improved firm performance. Appointments of outsiders are endogenous to firm ownership structure. Blockholder activism as well as contestability becomes an internal mechanism that improves director monitoring and ex-post firm valuation. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.