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Corporate Innovation: Do Diverse Boards Help?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2020

Heng An ,
Carl R. Chen Open the ORCID record for Carl R. Chen [Opens in a new window] ,
Qun Wu  and
Ting Zhang
Heng An
Affiliation:
An, [email protected], University of North Carolina Bryan School of Business and Economics
Carl R. Chen*
Affiliation:
Chen, [email protected]
Qun Wu
Affiliation:
Zhang, [email protected], University of Dayton School of Business
Ting Zhang
Affiliation:
Wu, [email protected], University of Nevada, Reno, College of Business Administration
*
Chen (corresponding author), [email protected]
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Abstract

We find that corporate innovation is positively related to board diversity as measured by a multidimensional index. The benefit of board diversity is more pronounced for firms with more complex operations, more experienced boards, and stronger external governance, suggesting that diverse boards have superior advising capacity. We find evidence to suggest that firms with diverse boards engage in more exploratory innovations and develop new technology in unfamiliar areas. As a result, they create a larger number of both most-cited and uncited patents. Finally, of the six different aspects of board diversity, professional diversity matters the most for corporate innovation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 155 - 182
Copyright
© Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington 2019

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Footnotes

We thank an anonymous referee, Shibo Bian, Ching-Hung Chang, Rui Lu, Paul Malatesta (the editor), Onur K. Tosun, Tong Zhou, and seminar participants at the 2016 Central Taiwan Finance Association Conference, the 2016 Financial Management Association (FMA) Meeting, the 2017 Asian Finance Association Conference, the 2017 FMA European Conference, the 2018 China Finance Review International Conference, Hunan University, National Chengchi University, National Dong-Hua University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, Southwest University of Finance and Economics, Sun Yet-San University, Tsinghua University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Zhejiang University, and Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics for their helpful comments and suggestions. An acknowledges the financial support from the Kathleen Price Bryan Dean’s Notable Scholar program. Wu thanks the University of Nevada, Reno, for summer research support, and Zhang thanks the University of Dayton School of Business Dean’s research grant.

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