When does ownership matter? Board characteristics and behavior

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Desender, Kurt A.; Aguilera, Ruth V.; Crespi, Rafel; Garcia-cestona, Miguel
• 署名单位: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Universitat Ramon Llull; Escuela Superior de Administracion y Direccion de Empresas (ESADE); Universitat de les Illes Balears; Autonomous University of Barcelona
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.2046
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 823-842
• 关键词: Board of directors; monitoring; corporate governance; Ownership structure; audit

摘要

We develop a contingency approach to explain how firm ownership influences the monitoring function of the boardmeasured as the magnitude of external audit fees contracted by the boardby extending agency theory to incorporate the resource dependence notion that boards have distinct incentives and abilities to monitor management. Analyses of data on Continental European companies reveal that while board independence and audit services are complementary when ownership is dispersed, this is not the case when ownership is concentratedsuggesting that ownership concentration and board composition become substitutes in terms of monitoring management. Additional analysis shows that the relationship between board composition and external audit fees is also contingent upon the type of the controlling shareholder. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.