If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. ABSTRACTMany organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm's financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners' implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm's financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

Innovation is wheel of change and development. Moreover, strategic planning is wheel and new mode of innovation and entrepreneurship. A growing body of literature, under the title of strategy planning and entrepreneurship, addresses the question of how strategic planning impacts on company's performance, competitive advantages, growth and market share. Therefore, almost every section in the chapter contains reports from empirical research conducted to investigate the different aspects of strategic planning in entrepreneurial companies worldwide. The research includes the most interesting parts of planning and entrepreneurship such as: environment, innovation, planning outcomes, benefits, limitations, etc. We find that surveyed companies introduce planning mostly because of their desire for growth, most of them use the entrepreneurial strategic mode, and their average time horizon for planning is less than three years. Importantly, this chapter opens the scientific door and avenue for new soundly empirical/theoretical studies and creative insights about strategic planning and entrepreneurship.

Innovation is wheel of change and development. Moreover, strategic planning is wheel and new mode of innovation and entrepreneurship. A growing body of literature, under the title of strategy planning and entrepreneurship, addresses the question of how strategic planning impacts on company's performance, competitive advantages, growth and market share. Therefore, almost every section in the chapter contains reports from empirical research conducted to investigate the different aspects of strategic planning in entrepreneurial companies worldwide. The research includes the most interesting parts of planning and entrepreneurship such as: environment, innovation, planning outcomes, benefits, limitations, etc. We find that surveyed companies introduce planning mostly because of their desire for growth, most of them use the entrepreneurial strategic mode, and their average time horizon for planning is less than three years. Importantly, this chapter opens the scientific door and avenue for new soundly empirical/theoretical studies and creative insights about strategic planning and entrepreneurship.