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Director workloads, attendance and firm performance

Stephen Gray (UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia)
John Nowland (Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA)

Accounting Research Journal

ISSN: 1030-9616

Article publication date: 2 July 2018

1275

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines whether increased director workloads are benefiting firms or are causing directors to become too busy, resulting in lower director attendance and weaker firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper conducts empirical analysis of the relationships between meeting frequency, director attendance rates and firm performance using archival data from Australia.

Findings

Attendance rates for both outside and inside directors decrease as they are required to attend more meetings. The benefits firms obtain from holding additional meetings are significantly eroded by lower director attendance.

Originality/value

This study brings together the literatures on meeting frequency, director busyness and firm performance to show that increased director workloads are only beneficial to firms if directors do not become too busy to fulfill their obligations to shareholders.

Keywords

Citation

Gray, S. and Nowland, J. (2018), "Director workloads, attendance and firm performance", Accounting Research Journal, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 214-231. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARJ-02-2016-0023

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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