Independent boards and innovation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Balsmeier, Benjamin; Fleming, Lee; Manso, Gustavo
• 署名单位: Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2016.12.005
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 536-557
• 关键词: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE; BOARD COMPOSITION; INNOVATION; Exploration and exploitation

摘要

Much research has suggested that independent boards of directors are more effective in reducing agency costs and improving firm governance. How they influence innovation is less clear. Relying on regulatory changes, we show that firms that transition to independent boards focus on more crowded and familiar areas of technology. They patent and claim more and receive more total future citations to their patents. However, the citation increase comes mainly from incremental patents in the middle of the citation distribution; the numbers of uncited and highly cited patents arguably associated with riskier innovation strategies do not change significantly. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.