Does Independence of Board Committees Enhance Corporate Performance? The Case of Russia

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the service of independent directors on audit, compensation, nomination, and strategy committees as a driver of book- and market-based performance using a sample of 77 Russian listed non-financial firms during the period 2009–2019. We address endogeneity using the Heckman correction procedure and instrumental variables. We find that committee independence not only positively affects firm performance but also moderates the relationship between committee structure and firm outcomes. Thus, the positive impact of government experience and female ownership on firm performance may be enhanced by the independence of certain committees.

KEYWORDS:

• Board of directors
• corporate governance
• board committee
• independent directors
• emerging markets
• Russia

JEL:

• G32

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2023.2278649

Notes

1. Some observations were excluded because the company was founded after 2012 or delisted before 2019.

2. We used the following websites: http://whoiswho.dp.ru; https://finparty.ru; http://www.forbes.ru

Additional information

Funding

This work is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).