This article assesses the corporate governance-related antecedents of nomination committee adoption, and the impact of nomination committees’ existence and their composition on board independence and board demographic diversity. We conducted a longitudinal study of board composition amongst 210 Swiss public companies from January 2001 through December 2003, a period during which the Swiss (Stock) Exchange (SWX) introduced new corporate governance-related disclosure guidelines. We find firms with nomination committees are more likely to have a higher number of independent and foreign directors, but not more likely to have a higher number of female board members. Further, the existence of nomination committees is associated with a higher degree of nationality diversity but is not related to board educational diversity. We also find that nomination committee composition matters in the nomination of independent and foreign, but not of female directors. Our results suggest that understanding different board roles and composition require a multi-theoretical approach, and that agency theory, resource-dependence theory and group effectiveness theory help to explain different aspects of board composition and effectiveness. Finally, the article discusses the concept of diversity and appropriate ways to study diversity in a boardroom context. Copyright Springer 2006board demographic diversity, board independence, nomination committees,

Prior research indicates that the relationship between top management team (TMT) faultlines and firm performance is equivocal. We shed new light on this topic by highlighting the moderating role of the CEO-TMT interface. Analyzing data from large international firms over the period 2005-2009 (347 firm-year combinations), we find that the performance effect of knowledge-based TMT faultlines is significantly altered when the leader of the TMT (i.e., the CEO): (a) socio-demographically resembles incumbent executives, (b) possesses a diverse career background, and (c) shares common socialization experience with other TMT members. Overall, our research reveals that different dimensions of the CEO-TMT interface play a pivotal role in determining the performance effects of knowledge-based TMT subgroups. Implications for upper echelons theory, team diversity, and strategic leadership research are discussed.

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Studies argue that generalist CEOs are more valued by the market for executive labor and receive higher initial compensation. Challenging this prevailing assumption, we acknowledge the drawbacks of extensive career mobility and predict an inverted U-shape relationship between CEO generalist career experience and CEO initial compensation. Integrating the generalism and specialization views of human capital, we postulate that at an initial level, the acquisition of experience breadth from different firms and industries enables CEOs to broaden their knowledge base, obtain a variety of skills, and thus increase their labor market value and initial compensation. After a threshold, however, the accumulation of extensive levels of career generalism through frequent job hopping across firm and industry contexts gradually causes a lack of experience depth and insufficient career specialization, thereby triggering lower CEO market value and initial pay. Data from 197 CEO appointments in large, publicly traded firms support our predictions. Our results also show that the observed inverted U-shape relationship varies with factors nested at different layers of context, highlighting the contingent nature of this area of research.