Supervisors info:
Ιωάννης Θάνος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Οικονομικών Επιστημών , ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
The present study investigates the relationship between the characteristics of a business management composition with its profitability and the risk it presents as an investment option. The main objective of the work is to show whether the composition of a company's board of directors in Greece is able to somehow influence its performance and risk or to reaffirm the findings of the majority of relevant studies on Greece that have shown that Board characteristics do not play a significant role in shaping a company's performance.
In our work we study empirically the relationship between board and performance as well as the relationship between risk and risk using a sample of forty-five listed on the Athens Stock Exchange while the study period covers the period 2015-2018.
In our study, we take into account various forms of accounting and stock market performance of the companies under consideration. We also use two alternative investment risk calculations for a company. On the other hand, the characteristics of the board considered relate to the size of the board, the female presence on the boards, the staffing of boards with independent executive members, and the non-duality of the chairman and chief executive, namely the identification of the chairman's face. of the board with that of the CEO in a company.
Our findings on the size of the board do not show any significant correlation with the performance and risk of a business, which confirms the findings of previous studies conducted for Greece. On the contrary, regarding the influence of female presence on boards in business performance, empirical results provide evidence of such a negative effect. The same applies to the presence of independent non-executive members and, in particular, to the stock market returns of the companies concerned. Finally, regarding the role of non-duality, the results, contrary to our expectations, show that having the role of chairman of the board and managing director of the same person is beneficial to a company because it contributes increasingly its performance and reducing the risk it presents as an investment option.
