Boardroom network and corporate governance : when who you know contributes to what you know

Abstract

In this study, I examine whether boardroom centrality has a causal effect on firm performance. If boardroom ties work as a conduit for information about market, industry, feedback on peers' experience, etc., then I expect central boards' corporate decisions to incorporate richer information and, as a result, become more efficient. Alternatively, if boardroom ties can put a firm at a disadvantage by disseminating proprietary information or conveying incorrect or misleading information, then I expect to find a deterioration in the central firms' performance. To isolate the effect of network centrality on the firm's performance, I use an instrumental variable approach based on director deaths at distant firms within the network. Contrary to the prevailing evidence in the literature, the results suggest that boardroom centrality deteriorates firm performance. To the best of my knowledge, this paper is the first to resolve the disagreement in the literature on the sign of the boardroom centrality effect on performance by using an exogenous setting that can rule out the selection and ability channels from the set of explanations for the results.