Abstract
Board of directors have been studied extensively in corporate governance literature. However, little literature investigates the corporate governance role played by academic independent directors (AIDs). In addition, some literature investigates the corporate governance role of female directors. However, results are mixed. In this thesis, I attempt to explore these questions. All empirical chapters focus on Chinese listed companies.The first objective of this dissertation is to investigate the corporate governance role of academic independent directors (AIDs, hereafter). The second is to investigate the corporate governance role of female (independent) directors. To achieve these objectives, this dissertation focuses on the following research questions. Firstly, it investigates the corporate governance role of AIDs, particularly focusing on the relationship between AIDs and firm performance. Secondly, it investigates the market reaction to the resignation of independent directors (i.e., IDs) and academic independent directors (i.e., AIDs). Thirdly, it investigates the corporate governance role of female (independent) directors, particularly focusing on the relationship between female (independent) directors and firm performance.
The sample include all listed companies in China, between 2004 to 2016. The first empirical chapter investigates the relationship between AIDs and firm performance by OLS regression and Difference-in-difference model. overall, this study finds no evidence about the influence of AIDs on firm performance. AIDs have influence on firm performance only when AIDs hold senior academic position, such as PhD supervisor post. This study uses various methods to do data analysis and find the similar results. The second empirical chapter investigates the shareholder wealth effect of directors’ departure, i.e., the market reaction to the announcement of directors’ departure, particularly focusing on the AIDs’ departure. If AIDs do add value to the firm, the market should respond negatively when AIDs leave their jobs as independent directors. The market reaction to the resignation of AIDs is positive. This result is opposite to the expectation if AIDs are beneficial to the firm. This is because if AIDs are beneficial to the firm, investors should view the departure of the AIDs as bad news and the market should respond negatively to the resignation of AIDs. However, this study finds the opposite results. The third empirical chapter investigates the relationship between female (independent) directors and firm performance. The OLS and fixed effect results indicate that there is relationship between female (independent) directors and firm performance. However, the system GMM results show that there is not association between female (independent) directors and firm performance.
| Date of Award | Apr 2021 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Hailin Liao (Supervisor), Jun Wang (Supervisor) & Graham Sadler (Supervisor) |