European Business Schools Librarian's Group
Working Papers,
Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics
No 03-2002: Why do firms have boards?
Morten Bennedsen
Additional contact information
Morten Bennedsen: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3 C, 5. sal, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Abstract: In a world where corporate boards are not required by law, I identify a governance and a distribute motive for board establishment and board composition. I investigate the presence of these motives in a sample of 23.000+ closely held corporations. Board frequency increases with more owners, if control is diluted and in larger firms. Given firms have a board, non-controlling owners are more likely to be on the board when controlling owners are more powerful. Finally, consistent with an equilibrium interpretation of strategic board establishment, I find little effect of the presence of boards on performance. I conclude that both motives are significant and discuss related corporate governance implications.
Keywords: Boards; governance; distributive conflicts; ultimate ownership
42 pages, March 1, 2002
Full text files
7624
- Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics
- Ordering Working Papers
- Home page for this series
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Lars Nondal ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2002_003This page generated on 2024-11-13 04:36:03.