The field oi corporate governance is at a crossroads. Our knowledge oi what we know about the eificacy oi corporate governance mechanisms is rivaled by what we do not know. This special topic ionim is dedicated to continuing the rich tradition oi research in this area, with the hope that the models and theories oiiered will propel corporate governance research to the next level, enhancing our understanding oi those governance structures and mechanisms that best serve organizational functioning. Catherine M. Daily is the David H. Jacobs Chair of Strategic Management in the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. She received her Ph.D. in strategic management from Indiana University. Her research interests include corporate governance, strategic leadership, the dynamics of business failure, ownership structures, and managerial ethics.

Careful review of extant research addressing the relationships between board composition, board leadership structure, and firm financial performance demonstrates little consistency in results. In general, neither board composition nor board leadership structure has been consistently linked to firm financial performance. In response to these findings, we provide meta‐analyses of 54 empirical studies of board composition (159 samples, n = 40,160) and 31 empirical studies of board leadership structure (69 samples, n = 12,915) and their relationships to firm financial performance. These—and moderator analyses relying on firm size, the nature of the financial performance indicator, and various operationalizations of board composition—provide little evidence of systematic governance structure/financial performance relationships. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Empirical research has not consistently identified antecedents for predicting post‐acquisition performance. We employ meta‐analytic techniques to empirically assess the impact of the most commonly researched antecedent variables on post‐acquisition performance. We find robust results indicating that, on average and across the most commonly studied variables, acquiring firms' performance does not positively change as a function of their acquisition activity, and is negatively affected to a modest extent. More importantly, our results indicate that unidentified variables may explain significant variance in post‐acquisition performance, suggesting the need for additional theory development and changes to M&A research methods. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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The literature applying agency theory to management has focused on the performance advantages to be gained when ownership and control of the firm are aligned. This article investigates that premise by comparing family‐owned and ‐managed and professionally managed firms. The article presents the results of a field survey that examined the extent to which family‐owned and ‐managed firms differ across structural, process, and performance dimensions from their professionally managed counterparts. Significant differences exist between these two groups on both structural and process dimensions, and there is evidence that family‐owned and ‐managed firms exhibit performance advantages as a result of the unification of ownership and control.