I examined the spillover of reputational penalties between firms in the context of financial reporting fraud. Drawing from signaling and attribution theories, I used financial event study methodology and found significant reputational penalties in 45 (18.4%) out of 244 firms with director interlocks to 30 firms accused of financial reporting fraud in the United States. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis suggested that firms thus associated with accused firms were more likely to experience significant reputational penalties when the interlocking directors held audit or governance chair positions in them. This likelihood decreased when these firms' observable governance structures signaled effective corporate governance.

Existing studies on women directorships present equivocal results on the association between appointing women directors and firm performance. These studies tend to focus on western countries and largely ignore investors' reactions to such appointments. This paper applies the financial event study method and finds that investors generally respond positively to the appointment of women directors in Singaporean firms. Regression analyses also reveal that investors are most receptive when the women are independent directors and are least receptive when the directors assume the CEO role. This study not only tests the theory of gender diversity in an Asian context but also examines whether investors react systematically to the different positions that women directors hold on corporate boards, a question that has received little attention in prior studies.

We suggest that the equivocal empirical results of board leadership structure on firm performance have both methodological and conceptual roots. We stress that whether board leadership structure enhances or lowers performance depends on its fit with a firm's internal and external conditions, a point that has not been comprehensively addressed by the extant literature. To guide future research in this field, we develop five testable propositions and offer some suggestions on how these propositions may be empirically tested. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.

We adopt a social network perspective of accounting choices and argue that voluntary expensing of stock option grants by firms may be driven by social influence and learning within a network of director interlocks. We find that firms are more likely to expense stock option grants voluntarily when they have inside director interlocks with (1) other firms that do likewise, and (2) institutional investors of firms accused of financial reporting fraud. This study contributes to extant research by highlighting that a social network approach complements a cost-and-benefit approach (or an economic perspective) when examining the accounting practices of firms. Copyright (c) 2008 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.