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This study aims to examine whether the age and tenure of the chair of the board of directors are related to research and development (R&D) investment in China.

This study uses A-share manufacturing firms that traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange between 2009 and 2018. This study uses OLS regressions, controls for self-selection bias, and uses an instrumental variable to alleviate the concern of endogeneity.

This study finds that chair tenure has a negative relationship with R&D investment. This study does not find a significant relationship between chair age and R&D investment.

This study contributes to corporate governance and strategic management literature by highlighting chair tenure as a new factor affecting R&D investments. It also adds a significant contribution to the limited literature on the chair’s role in strategic decisions. Moreover, companies that are eager to strengthen corporate governance and maintain sustained innovation may reconsider the chair tenure. Given that many proposals for board governance reform explicitly stress the importance of limiting board tenure, this study contributes to policymakers by providing evidence in support of these proposals.

This paper aims to review 68 archival studies on the impact of audit committees (ACs) on firms’ consequences [(non)financial reporting, performance and audit quality] in European firms.

Applying a stakeholder agency-theoretical framework, the author differentiates between three categories of AC variables: presence; composition; and resources, incentives and diligence.

The author finds that AC composition, (non)financial reporting and audit quality are dominant in the literature review. Other inputs or outputs are either too low in amount or yielded heterogeneous results, hindering clear tendencies. However, there are indications that financial expertise is positively related to financial reporting and audit quality, in line with agency theory and European regulatory assumptions.

In the discussion of potential future research, the author emphasizes, among others, the need for the recognition of innovative and sustainable AC variables, inclusion of moderator and especially mediator variables and reaction to endogeneity concerns by advanced regression models.

As the European Commission currently discusses extended regulations on AC duties and composition, this literature review highlights the huge impact of financial expertise on financial reporting and audit quality. In view of the increased monitoring duties of sustainability reporting, both business practices and regulatory bodies should increase the sustainability expertise of ACs.

This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on attributes of AC and their impact on firms’ outputs in the European capital market, based on a differentiation between mandatory one-tier/two-tier systems and the choice model. The findings support the promotion of European evidence-based regulations, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of board structure on voluntary corporate disclosure via social media among the top 150 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

A disclosure index comprising of a set of items that encompass two facets of disclosure, namely corporate disclosure via social networks and social media sites, is developed and used. Binary logistic regression is used to test the research hypotheses.

The results of this study reveal the underlying relations between board composition and control variables as the determining factors of corporate disclosure, i.e. board size, board activism, board independence and board diversity (gender and ethnicity). The gender of the board can affect the corporate disclosure via a social network. The results of this study indicate that an increase in the number of female in the board members leads to higher corporate disclosure using social network. Moreover, firm size has a positive effect on corporate disclosure indicating that large firms tend to disclose more information on their websites and social networks.

The paper provides new insights into the role played by the non-executive female directors in monitoring and controlling managerial processes related to corporate disclosure using social media.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that examines the role of board structure in monitoring and controlling management decisions and managerial processes in the area of corporate disclosure via social media.

Corporate governance scholars have long been interested in understanding the impact of former chief executive officers (CEOs) who do not fully leave office but rather remain as board members. Departing from the inconclusive findings of retaining Janus-faced predecessor CEOs on boards, this study revisits the concept of retaining predecessor CEOs on boards (RPCB) and its influence on successors and firm performance under certain conditions.

The study analyzes a sample of 461 Taiwanese firms from 2015 to 2019, adopting the ordinary least squares regression method to examine the correlation between RPCB and firm performance. It specifically analyzes the moderating effects of the complexity of firms' internal and external environments in this context.

The empirical results show that there is no direct relationship between RPCB and post-succession performance, indicating that this association is shaped by contextual factors. Indeed, the influence of predecessors is more pronounced in situations of high internal and external complexities such that the value of RPCB is situation specific.

This study is the first to generate the resource-based view theory to recognize that the relationship between predecessors on boards and financial consequences is moderated by contextual factors. The authors are the first to extend extant research by considering internal and external complexity in the context of succession and RPCB. In such situations, successors' need for regular mentoring is heightened and the benefits of prior CEO knowledge and resources are more substantial.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the characteristics of the audit committee (AC) chair affect audit report timeliness. In particular, the direct association between AC chair accounting expertise and audit report delay, and the moderating effect of other characteristics of AC chair on this association are examined.

To achieve the purpose of this study, the characteristics examined by this study are AC chair expertise, shareholding, tenure and multiple directorships. Furthermore, a sample of Malaysian companies during the period 2005–2011 and the fixed effects panel data method are utilized.

The results suggest that an AC chair with accounting expertise is associated with a reduction in audit delay. The reduction is more obvious when the chair holds shares in the company, but is weakened by longer tenure and multiple directorships. These results are robust after conducting several robust tests. Using mediating analysis, the authors also document that an AC chair with accounting expertise can enhance the timeliness of audit reports even when the quality of financial reporting is lower. The reported result is supported by additional analysis that finds that AC chairs with accounting expertise and AC chairs with accounting expertise and shareholding are significantly associated with shorter abnormal audit delay.

This study provides comprehensive analysis concerning the association between AC chair and audit report timeliness using a unique setting. It is among the limited evidence that reports the moderating effect of AC chair characteristics on the role of such chair on audit report timeliness.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between chair–chief executive officer (CEO) demographic dissimilarities and firm internationalization.

The pooled ordinary least squares regression is used on a sample of listed firms in Malaysia from 2013 to 2017. This study considers three demographic dissimilarities between the chair and CEO, i.e. differences in age, educational background and nationality.

The results reveal that demographic dissimilarities between the chair and CEO, notably differences in nationality, may result in conflicting cognitive styles, which in turn may impede the firms’ ability to expand internationally, as compared to differences in age and educational background. The findings demonstrate the deleterious effects of demographic dissimilarity between these two individuals in the highest echelons on the firms’ internationalization strategy due to poor communication and lack of ability to cooperate when dissatisfaction and conflicts intensify between these corporate elites.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper makes the first attempt to examine the influence of chair–CEO demographic dissimilarities on firm internationalization. Previous studies examining firms’ internationalization strategy, for the most part, restricted their scope to either the board members or top management team characteristics, but had largely overlooked the nexus between nonexecutive and executive directors through the chair and CEO. A focus on the demographic dissimilarities between the co-leaders of the firm is essential to improve the understanding of the collaboration and rivalry between them, which may affect board effectiveness and firm internationalization.

As the primary decision makers, chief executive officers (CEOs) play pivotal roles in firm innovation. However, little is known regarding how CEOs influence the exploitation and exploration paradox. To advance theory and research, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the joint effects of CEO tenure and CEO–chair duality on a firm’s shifting emphasis between exploitative and exploratory innovation.

This paper takes the approach of a longitudinal sample of 81 US pharmaceutical firms.

As CEOs’ tenure advance, their firms’ percentage of exploitative innovation increases. Furthermore, non-duality (separation of board chair and CEO) further strengthens the positive relationship between CEO tenure and the percentage of exploitative innovation.

This study integrates upper echelons theory and behavioral agency theory to juxtapose the effects of CEOs on technological innovation. This study extends knowledge of strategic leadership and innovation by showing that CEOs influence the balance between exploitative and exploratory innovation. Furthermore, this study also contributes to the corporate governance literature by demonstrating that monitoring vigilance could inhibit capable CEOs from pursuing more exploratory innovation.

Boards of directors should allow CEOs to have greater discretion over innovation, and vigilant monitoring and control may force CEOs to focus less on exploration.

This is one of the few studies that explicitly investigate how CEO influences a firm’s emphasis on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation.

The authors analyze the association between the functional background of the compensation committee chair and CEO compensation. The analysis is motivated by the continuing debate about the reasonableness of executive pay patterns and the growing emphasis on the role of compensation committees.

The authors define three expert categories—accounting, finance, and generalist—and collect data on the compensation committee (CC) chairs of the S&P 500 firms from 2008 to 2018. The authors run an ordinary least square model and regress CEO total and cash compensation on the three expert categories.

The authors find that firms in which the CC chair has expertise in accounting, finance, and general business favor performance measures that are more aligned with accounting, finance, and general business, respectively. There is little evidence that CC chairs who are CEOs of other firms endorse more generous pay for the host CEO; the authors find some evidence that CC chairs tenure relative to the host CEO's is negatively associated with the level of the CEO's pay.

This study suggests that firms and regulators should consider the background of the compensation committee chair to understand the variations in top executive.

Companies desiring to link executive compensation to particular areas of strategy must also consider matching the functional background of the compensation committee chair with the target strategy areas. From regulatory standpoint, requiring compensation committees to operate independent of inside directors can reduce attempts by inside directors to skim the process, but a failure to also consider the impact of compensation committees' discretion over the pay-setting process can distort the executives' pay-performance relation.

This is the first study to examine the effects of the functional background of the compensation committee chair on CEO compensation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the characteristics of audit committee chairman (ACC) (tenure, age, gender, ethnicity, accounting expertise and directorship) on earnings management (EM) practices.

The Jones model and modified Jones model by Dechow et al. (1995) were used to determine the discretionary accruals (DA) of 288 Malaysian listed firms with lowest positive earnings for the years 2013‒2015.

The results of the ordinary least squares regression indicate that only tenure, gender and ethnicity of the ACC are associated with DA. A further test was conducted by dividing firms into two groups: firms whose boards are chaired by a family member and firms whose boards are chaired by a non-family member. The results reveal that it is possible for firms whose boards are chaired by family members to cause the corporate governance (CG) mechanisms, particularly the audit committee, to lose their effectiveness in overcoming the EM problem. In addition, robustness tests were conducted by using panel data regression, where the results were found to be similar to the original regression results.

This study alerts policymakers, firms and their stakeholders, as well as researchers, regarding the importance of having an independent board chairman, who has no relationship with any directors or major shareholders, as this may hinder the effectiveness of CG mechanisms in curbing EM, especially in emerging countries, such as Malaysia, where it is very difficult to stop members of the family from becoming board directors.

The authors investigate the adoption of nomination committees in Australia and identify the managerial power perspective as one explanation for firms not establishing nomination committees. A positive outcome of establishing a nomination committee from the perspective of board diversity is also examined.

The authors adopt an archival approach by collecting data for firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) during the period 2010 to 2018. The authors establish the prevalence of nomination committees for small medium and large Australian firms. Regression analyses are used to determine whether the power of the chief executive officer (CEO) influences the adoption of a nomination committee. The association between having nomination committee and board diversity is also analyzed using regression analyses.

Less than half of firms adopt a nomination committee. Larger firms are more likely to adopt a nomination committee than medium and smaller sized firms. Firms with less powerful CEOs are more likely to adopt a nomination committee. Adoption of a nomination committee is also associated with greater board tenure dispersion and board gender diversity in medium and smaller sized firms.

Evidence on nomination committees provides original research that extends previous research focusing on the audit, risk and remuneration committees and samples restricted to large firms. The nomination committee has an important role to play in the appointment of directors yet limited evidence exists of the adoption rate, explanation for non-adoption and benefits of adoption. The authors add to this evidence.