Re-examining the NED effect on firm financial performance: the impact and interplay of NED capital and NED equity incentives

ABSTRACT

Drawing on propositions from Hillman and Dalziel’s pioneering 2003 articulation of Board Capital Theory, this paper investigates the interaction between NED externally-derived capital (proxied by multi-factor capital breadth and focal industry capital depth), internally-derived capital (proxied by tenure overlap), and their equity ownership in the focal firm in influencing firm accounting and stock market performance, measured respectively by ROE and Tobin’s Q. Our analysis on a dynamic panel data comprised of the top ASX 213 companies from 2008 to 2012 shows that NED external capital breadth and depth both strongly predict ROE and Tobin’s Q. Further, we find that equity holding strengthens the impact of NED external capital depth on Tobin’s Q, whereas internally-derived capital interacts with NED external capital breadth to increase Tobin’s Q, but also with NED external capital depth to reduce ROE. These findings carry both confirmatory and revisionary implications for theory, research and corporate governance practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-executive directors
• Board Capital Theory
• director incentives
• firm financial performance

Acknowledgement

We thank Professor Ma Yue and the anonymous reviewer(s) from Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics for their constructive feedback that allowed us to improve our work substantially. This study was conducted under the sponsorship of Australian Awards Scholarship during T. Nguyen’s PhD program at The University of Sydney.

Disclosure statement

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