Are busy boards detrimental?

Disproportionate insider control and board of director characteristics

“…Fich and Shivdasani (2006) find that busy directors are less effective, and Adams and Ferreira (2008) show that outside directorships increase board meeting attendance problems. By contrast, Field et al (2013), Ferris et al (2003), and Larker et al (2013) find a positive influence of busy directors. In addition, Kroll et al (2008) find that director experience on other boards is positively related to acquisition outcomes.…”

“…Directors that are too busy with other board duties may not be able to devote enough time to their task of monitoring and advising executives (Fich and Shivdasani, 2006). However, some research finds a positive impact of busy directors (Field et al, 2013;Larker et al, 2013). The propensity of being busy also is a function of a person's qualification to serve on other boards.…”

Board Member Characteristics and Ownership Structure Impacts on Real Earnings Management

“…In regard to the diligence or service of the boards, Ferris, Jagannathan, and Pritchard (2003), Harris and Shimizu (2004) and Field, Lowry, and Mkrtchyan (2013) support the notion that busy directors (where many directors hold board seats in multiple firms) can fulfill their governance responsibility effectively. However, some studies demonstrate that busy boards may not effectively monitor management (Fich & Shivdasani, 2006;Jiraporn, Singh, & Lee, 2009b).…”

Multiple directorships and board meeting frequency: evidence from France

“…For example, Vafeas (1999) argued that board meetings frequency may increase when the number of outside directorships held by independent board members increases. Several studies showed that the accumulation of many outside directorships may enhance the knowledge of directors and their experience (Ghosh, 2007;Cook and Wang, 2011;Field et al, 2013). However, although they are considered competent (Vafeas, 1999;Di Pietra et al, 2008;Pombo and Gutiérrez, 2011), directors holding multiple directorships may have difficulties to attend some regular board meetings (Booth and Deli, 1996;Laksmana, 2008;Jiraporn et al, 2009a).…”

“…In fact, a large literature has focused on the concept of multiple directorships of directors and its relationships with internal and external characteristics of the firm and with some attributes of directors (Ahn et al, 2010;Lee and Lee, 2012;Field et al, 2013). In this framework, several theoretical and empirical studies (Sarkar and Sarkar, 2009;Frye and Wang, 2010;Pathak and Sun, 2013) highlighted the advantages of increasing the number of directorships held by directors (e.g.…”