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Corporate governance and firm
performance in developing countries:
evidence from India
Akshita Arora and Chandan Sharma

Akshita Arora is based at Abstract

Department of Finance, Purpose – This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance on firm performance for a
Banasthali Vidyapith, large representative sample.
Rajasthan, India. Design/methodology/approach – This empirical analysis focuses on a large number of companies
Chandan Sharma is covering 20 important industries of the Indian manufacturing sector for the period 2001-2010. Several
based at Department of alternative specifications and estimation techniques are used for analysis purposes, including system
generalized methods of moments, which effectively overcomes the problem of endogeneity and
Economics, Indian
simultaneity bias.
Institute of Management,
Findings – On one side, the findings indicate that larger boards are associated with a greater depth of
Lucknow, India.
intellectual knowledge, which in turn helps in improving decision-making and enhancing the
performance. On the other side, the results indicate that return on equity and profitability is not related
to corporate governance indicators. The results also suggest that CEO duality is not related to any firm
performance measures for the sample firms.
Practical implications – The outcomes of the analyses advocated that companies that comply with
good corporate governance practices can expect to achieve higher accounting and market
performance. It implies that good corporate governance practices lead to reduced agency costs.
Hence, it is concluded that firms of the developing world can possibly enhance their performance by
implementing good corporate governance practices.
Originality/value – Departing from the conventional system of the prior studies and instead of focusing
on a single measure framework, a range of measures of corporate governance and firm’s performance
variables are used. Also, several alternative specifications and estimation techniques are used for
analysis purposes. Furthermore, the sample also covers a large sample of manufacturing firms.
Keywords Corporate governance, Board of directors, Firm performance
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The relationship between corporate governance and firm performance has been a widely
debated and well-researched topic in the developed countries context. However, in the
past few years, this issue has also been discussed in the context of emerging countries,
such as India, in light of the recent corporate collapses and scams[1]. The corporate
collapses resulting from a weak system of corporate governance highlighted the need to
improve and reform the governance structure. Firms’ governance plays an important role in
the probability of accounting frauds and firms which have a weak governance structure
being more prone to accounting frauds (Berkman et al., 2009). The failure in preventing
these scams has fuelled many debates on the effectiveness of current corporate
governance rules, principles, structures and mechanisms (Sun et al., 2011).
The firms with weaker governance structures have to face more agency problems and
managers of such firms gain more private benefits (Core et al., 1999). The theory of agency
Received 21 April 2014 problem suggests that the directors of a firm are not likely to be as careful with other
Revised 4 September 2015
26 January 2016
people’s money as with their own fund (Letza et al., 2004). The theory further states that the
Accepted 29 January 2016 main purpose of corporate governance is to provide assurance to the shareholders that

PAGE 420 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016, pp. 420-436, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 DOI 10.1108/CG-01-2016-0018
managers are working toward achieving outcomes in the shareholders’ interests (Shleifer
and Vishny, 1997). Other important related theories, for instance, the Stewardship theory,
assume a strong relationship between the success of organization and shareholders’
satisfaction. A steward protects and maximizes shareholders’ wealth through firm
performance, because by doing so, the steward’s utility functions are maximized.
Importantly, the stakeholder theory suggests that a corporate seeks to provide a balance
between the interests of its diverse stakeholders (Abrams, 1951). John and Senbet (1998)
provided a comprehensive review of the stakeholder theory and pointed out the presence
of many parties with competing interests in the operations of the firm. They emphasized the
role of non-market mechanisms such as board size and committee structure as relevant
factors for firms’ performance. The resource dependency theory views agents as resources
who provide social and business networks and indicates that directors’ presence on the
board of other organizations is relevant to establish relationships to have access to
resources in the form of information which can be utilized for the firm’s benefit. Hence, this
theory shows that the strength of a corporate organization lies in the amount of relevant
information it has at its disposal. All the theories of corporate governance suggest for an
effective governance system which involves the appointment of board which includes both
executive as well as non-executive directors.
In the past two decades, there has been an increased intensity of research on the
relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. But the issue has mainly
been explored in developed economies (Hermalin and Weisbach, 1991; Kang and
Shivdasani, 1995; Gompers et al., 2003; Judge et al., 2003; Barnhart et al., 1994; Bauer
et al., 2004; Christopher, 2004; Bhagat and Bolton, 2002; Guest, 2008). The empirical work
on this issue is still at its infancy in the context of developing countries like India, maybe due
to the relatively opaque disclosure practices followed by companies or the data
unavailability problem. Moreover, most of the previous studies on India were either based
on small samples (Dwivedi and Jain, 2005; Ghosh, 2006; Garg, 2007; Jackling and Johl,
2009) with a limited number of observations or on cross-sectional data that do not allow
controlling for unobserved firm effects. For example, to examine the inter-linkage, Ghosh
(2006) used data of 127 listed manufacturing firms for the year 2003 and Garg (2007)
considered a sample of merely 164 companies. Likewise, Kohli and Saha (2008) analyzed
the impact of corporate governance on firm valuation in fast-moving consumer goods and
information technology sectors of India for a sample of 30 firms.
Against this backdrop, the objective of this study is to examine the impact of corporate
governance on firm’s performance for a large representative sample of Indian
manufacturing industry[2]. In doing so, we add several novelties to the existing literature.
First, to make our data set a representative sample of the Indian industry, our empirical
analysis focuses on a large number of companies covering 20 important industries of the
manufacturing sector. Second, we depart from the conventional system of the prior studies
of related literature and instead of focusing on a single measure framework, we utilize a
range of measures of corporate governance including board size, ownership and number
of meetings held, and firm’s performance indicators cover both market and financial
variables. This is important for checking robustness of results to explore the inter-linkage.
Third, recently it has been shown by Bhagat and Bolton (2002) that the linkage between
corporate governance and performance is of an endogenous nature and the regression
results are highly sensitive toward the use of estimation techniques. Bearing this issue in
mind, we use several alternative specifications and estimation techniques for analysis
purposes, including system generalized methods of moments (system-GMM), which
effectively overcomes the problem of endogeneity and simultaneity bias.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews the literature on the
relationship between corporate governance and firm performance; Section 3 discusses the
sample selection, its characteristics, data sources, construction of hypotheses and model
specification. Section 4 presents the empirical results on the relationship between

VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PAGE 421

 corporate governance and firm performance and discussion thereof. The final section
concludes the study and provides implication of our findings for developing countries.

2. Review of literature
Much of the standard related literature examines the interrelation between firm
performance and some subset of several measurements of corporate governance, such as
insider– outsider ownership, board composition, board size, executive compensation and
board tasks (Jensen, 1993; Yermack, 1996; Dalton et al., 1999; Coles and Hesterly, 2000;
Elsayed, 2007; Bhagat and Bolton, 2002). Some studies instead of focusing on individual
measures of corporate governance use a composite measure. For instance, Gompers et al.
(2003) and Core et al. (2006) construct a governance index (G-index). In this section, we
review the related literature, and as research on this issue is quite voluminous, we mainly
cover issues of measures of corporate governance and their linkage with firm performance.
Later, we also provide a review of findings of Indian studies.
Identifying an appropriate and optimal board size of a corporate has been a matter of
debate in numerous studies (Lipton and Lorsch, 1992; Jensen, 1993; Yermack, 1996;
Dalton et al., 1999; Hermalin and Weisbach, 2003; Neville, 2011). Some researchers
supported smaller boards, for instance, Lipton and Lorsch (1992); Jensen (1993) and
Yermack (1996), while some others have favored large boards, as it would provide a
greater monitoring and effective decision-making (Pfeffer, 1972; Klein, 1998; Adams and
Mehran, 2003; Anderson and Reeb, 2003; Coles et al., 2008). Supporting a small board
size, Lipton and Lorsch (1992) argued that larger boards might face problems of social
loafing and free-riding. As board increases in size, free-riding increases and efficiency of
the board is reduced. This was confirmed by Jensen (1993), who favored small boards on
the ground that it leads to better decision-making due to greater coordination and lesser
communication problems. Studies like those by Yermack (1996) and Eisenberg et al. (1998)
have also provided evidence that smaller boards are associated with higher firm value. The
larger boards have to face problems of communication and cohesiveness, which in turn
may result in conflicts (O’Reilly et al., 1989). On the other hand, Klein (1998) argued that the
type and magnitude of advice a CEO needs increases with the complexity and size of the
organization. For example, the diversified firms operating in multiple segments might
require greater advice and discussion (Hermalin and Weisbach, 1988; Yermack, 1996)
and, therefore, larger boards are required for such firms.
A significant trend seen in the corporate boards after the series of scandals is the rise of
outside directors in the board. Baysinger and Butler (1985) and Rosenstein and Wyatt
(1990) have shown that the market rewards firms for appointing outside directors. Brickley
et al. (1994) tested the relationship between proportion of outside directors and
stock-market reactions to poison-pill adoptions and found a positive relationship between
the two. However, Yermack (1996) showed that the proportion of outside directors does not
significantly affect firm performance. Similarly, Forsberg (1989) also did not find any
relationship between the proportion of outside directors and various firm performance
measures. Consistent with this notion were Hermalin and Weisbach (1991) and Bhagat and
Bolton (2002), who also failed to find any significant relationship between board
composition and firm performance. Agrawal and Knoeber (1996) opined that boards
expanded for political reasons often result in too many outsiders on the board, which does
not help in the improvement of performance.
The board processes also have a huge impact on firm performance, and meetings are
necessary for the effectiveness of the board tasks (Zahra and Pearce, 1989). When board
of directors meet frequently, they are more likely to discuss the concerned issues and
monitor the management more effectively, thereby performing their duties with better
coordination and in harmony with shareholders’ interests (Lipton and Lorsch, 1992).
Consistent with this notion, Conger et al. (1998) suggested that board meeting time is an
important resource for improving the board effectiveness and, thus, better

PAGE 422 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016

decision-making. But, there are also costs attached with board meetings, such as
managerial time, travel expense, directors’ fees and other resources (Vafeas, 1999). Lipton
and Lorsch (1992) and Jensen (1993) pointed out that the limited time available for
meetings might not be sufficient for substantial dialogue among directors. Interestingly,
Jensen (1993) has argued that boards should be relatively inactive and are required to
become active only in the times of trouble.
There is also an ongoing debate on the issue of CEO duality and firm performance, but the
empirical studies on this issue reveal a conflicting set of results (Rechner and Dalton, 1991;
Boyd, 1995; Balinga et al., 1996; Coles and Hesterly, 2000; Elsayed, 2007; Bhagat and
Bolton, 2002). Bhagat and Bolton (2002) have found the CEO–Chair separation to be
significantly positively correlated with firm’s operating performance. Boyd (1995) also
indicated that CEO duality actually improves firm performance. Rechner and Dalton (1991)
also supported separation of CEO and chair positions, as the firms opting for independent
leadership outperformed the firms relying on CEO duality. Some authors found no
significant difference between the firms with CEO duality and those without it (Daily and
Dalton, 1997; Dalton et al., 1998). In fact, Daily and Dalton (1997) suggested that
separation of CEO and board chair positions results in misdirected effort.
Finally, ownership control and institutional ownership are also important determinants of
firm performance. For instance, Agyemang and Castellini (2015) focused on how
ownership control and board control systems operate in corporate firms in an emergent
economy like Ghana, assuming that these systems are essential for enhancing good
corporate governance practices in emerging countries. Kyereboah-Coleman (2007) has
found that institutional shareholding enhances market valuation. On the other hand,
Mashayekhi and Bazaz (2008) while investigating the role of corporate governance indices
on firm performance (earnings per share, return on assets [ROA], return on equity [ROE])
found that the presence of institutional investors is not positively associated with firm
performance.
Overall, the empirical findings on corporate governance and firm performance have been
very mixed. On the one hand, several studies estimated that better corporate governance
significantly enhances firm performance (Brickley and James, 1987; Weisbach, 1988;
Rosenstein and Wyatt, 1990; Byrd and Hickman, 1992; Lee et al., 1992; Brickley et al.,
1994; Hossain et al., 2000; Chung et al., 2003; Drobetz et al., 2003; Beiner et al., 2004;
Brown and Caylor, 2006; Black et al., 2006). On the other hand, some others (Bathala and
Rao, 1995; Hutchinson, 2002; Bauer et al., 2004) reported an inverse relationship between
corporate governance and firm performance. There are also studies which reported no
significant relationship between corporate governance and firm performance (Hermalin
and Weisbach, 1991; Park and Shin, 2003; Prevost et al., 2002; Singh and Davidson, 2003;
Young, 2003).
There are a few studies that empirically tested the relationship in the Indian case.
Consistent with worldwide studies, the findings of the studies on India are very mixed in
nature. For instance, findings of Kathuria and Dash (1999) and Jackling and Johl (2009)
revealed an improvement in the performance with an increase in the board size. Focusing
on board size and firm performance, Dwivedi and Jain (2005) also estimated a positive
association between board size and firm value, though the association was weak. On the
other hand, there are some prominent studies like that by Ghosh (2006), which finds that
board size exerts a negative influence on corporate performance, but number of
non-executive directors has a positive effect on firm’s performance. More recently, Jackling
and Johl (2009) argued that outside directors with multiple appointments appeared to have
a negative effect on performance.
The above discussion shows that empirical studies on corporate governance and firm
performance reveal a conflicting set of results. The puzzle that how corporate governance
relates to firm performance remains unsolved, in spite of the several studies conducted on

VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PAGE 423

 this issue. There could be various explanations for the inconsistencies in the results. For
instance, the problem lies in the use of different data sources: secondary data or survey
data, as these sources have different characteristics. The use of different performance
measures and their different measurements may also be the reason for the inconsistency
in results (Gani and Jermias, 2006). Finally, the evidence also suggests that the estimates
are quite sensitive toward the selection of empirical techniques for analysis.

3. Research design and methodology

This section provides a discussion on data sources, selection of firms and construction of
the empirical model for estimating the relationship between corporate governance and firm
performance as well as the estimation issues.

3.1 Data
The data for the empirical analysis are extracted from PROWESS[3] database as well as
from the annual and corporate governance reports of the companies. The firms in our
sample are chosen from 20 important industries of the manufacturing sector, which
includes food and beverages, textiles (cotton and synthetic), chemicals (drugs and
pharmaceuticals, inorganic and organic chemicals, cosmetics, polymer, petroleum,
plastic, rubber, tires and tubes), machinery (electrical, non-electrical and electronics
machinery), non-metallic mineral products, metal products, transport, leather and paper
sector. The total manufacturing firms listed under Bombay Stock Exchange in these 20
industries are 2,431 firms. The firms with missing data are excluded from the sample and
we are left with the final sample size of 1,922 firms. For the analysis, we use ROA, ROE and
net profit margin (NPM) as accounting measures, and market performance measures like
adjusted Tobin’s q (TQ) and stock returns (SR). For corporate governance measures, we
consider the board characteristics like board size, independence, activity intensity,
CEO-duality and institutional ownership. The construction of these variables for the
empirical analysis is discussed in Table I. The market firm performance measure, TQ, has
been obtained similar to the calculations of Gompers et al. (2003).

3.2. Variables construction and empirical hypotheses

This section provides discussion on explanatory variables and their expected relationship
with indicators of firm’s performance.
3.2.1 Board size (BS). It is widely argued that large boards are less effective and are easier
for the CEOs to control on the firms. The cost of coordination and processing problems are
also high in large boards, and this makes decision-making difficult (Anderson and Reeb,
2003; Coles et al., 2008). On the other hand, another argument is that smaller boards
reduce the possibility of free-riding and, therefore, have the tendency of enhancing firm
performance (Lipton and Lorsch, 1992; Yermack, 1996; Eisenberg et al., 1998). With these
viewpoints, the study measures board size by the number of directors serving on boards,
and it is expected to have a negative relationship with firm performance. We use square of
board size to capture the small differences in board size. Therefore, we have the following
hypothesis to test:
H1. The board size is positively related to firm performance.
3.2.2 Board independence (PO). The inclusion of independent directors on corporate
boards is an effective mechanism to reduce the potential divergence between
management and shareholders. John and Senbet (1998) argued that a board is more
independent if it has more non-executive directors. Contrary to this, some studies reported
a negative relationship between board independence and firm performance (Bhagat and
Bolton, 2002). The corporates are adding independent directors to their board with a view
to improve their performance; therefore, we expect its positive impact on firm performance.
Board independence is measured by the proportion of independent non-executive
directors serving in the board of the company. It is computed by dividing the number of

PAGE 424 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016

Table I Description of variables used in the study
Sr. no. Variable(s) Full form Definition

Panel A: Firm performance measures

1. ROA Return on assets PBDIT/total assets
2. ROE Return on equity PBDIT/(Paid–up equity capital ⫹ reserves and funds)
3. TQ Adjusted Tobin’s q (Total assets ⫹ market capitalization – book value of
equity – deferred tax liability)/total assets where, book value
of equity is paid–up equity capital ⫹ reserves and funds
4. NPM Net profit margin PBDIT/net sales
5. SR Stock returns (Stock price at year t⫹1 – stock price at year t ⫹
dividends)/Stock price at year t⫹1
Panel B: Corporate governance variables
6. BS Square of board size Square of number of directors on board
7. PO Square of proportion of outside directors Square of number of non-executive independent directors
on board/Total board size
8. BM Square of board meetings Square of frequency of annual meetings
9. CEOdual Chief executive officer duality Dummy variable equals 1 when CEO doubles as board
chair and 0 otherwise
10. IO Institutional ownership Shares held by (Indian promoter FIs and banks ⫹ promoter
foreign institutions ⫹ non-promoter institutions)/Total shares
held by institutions
Panel C: Control variables
11. Age Firm age Present year – Incorporation year
12. Lev Leverage Borrowings/total assets
13. Size Natural log of sales Sales is deflated using wholesale price index, then natural
log is taken
14. AdvInt Advertising intensity Natural log of (advertising expenses/sales)
15. RDint Research and development intensity Natural log of (research and development expenses/sales)

non-executive independent directors on the board by total board size. For estimation
purposes, we use the square of the proportion of outside directors to capture the small
differences in the proportion of outside directors. The study tests the following hypothesis:
H2. Board independence has a positive relationship with firm performance.
3.2.3 Board activity intensity (BM). We measure the intensity of board activity by the
frequency of meetings annually. We use square of board meeting for estimation purpose to
capture the small differences in the board meetings. It is argued that when boards of
directors meet frequently, they are likely to enhance firm performance and, thus, perform
their duties in accordance with shareholders’ interests (Conger et al., 1998). On the
contrary, Vafeas (1999) pointed out that board meetings are not necessarily useful, the
limited time that the non-executive directors spend together may not be used for
meaningful exchange of ideas among themselves or with management. These meetings
also involve heavy costs such as managerial time, directors’ remuneration, etc. Thus, we
seek to investigate the following hypothesis:
H3. The frequency of annual board meetings is negatively related to firm performance.
3.2.4 CEO duality (CEOdual). It is argued that there is a conflict of interest and higher
agency costs when the CEO is also the board chairman (Berg and Smith, 1978; Ehikioya,
2009), and it is suggested that the two positions should be occupied by two different
persons. There is another argument that when the CEO doubles as board chair, it gives the
CEO the opportunity to carry out decisions without any undue influence of bureaucratic
structures. For example, Elsayed (2007), based on initial econometric results, found that
CEO duality has no impact on corporate performance. However, when an interaction term
between industry type and CEO duality is included in the model, the impact of CEO duality
on corporate performance is found to vary across industries. Considering these findings,
the study takes CEO duality, a dummy variable (equals unity when the CEO doubles as
board chair and 0 otherwise), as a parameter of corporate governance variables. We
construct the following hypothesis to test:

VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PAGE 425

 H4. CEO duality is negatively related to firms’ performance.
3.2.5 Institutional ownership. The nature of ownership of a firm is an important dimension of
its governance structure and serves as an extra monitoring device on the operations of the
firm and, thus, influences performance. It is, therefore, expected that institutional ownership
has a positive relationship with firm performance. We measure institutional shareholding by
the percentage of shares held by institutions divided by the total number of shares with the
company (IO). We test the following hypothesis:
H5. Institutional shareholding is positively related to firms’ performance.
3.2.6 Control variables. Our empirical model also includes some important firm-specific
characteristics to control the model. These variables include firm size measured using the
natural log of sales (lnSales), leverage, ratio of total debt to assets (Lev), firm age from the
date of incorporation of the firm (Age), firm growth opportunities, proxied by the natural log
of advertising expenditure to total sales (AdvInt) and research and development to total
sales (RDint).

3.3 Empirical model and estimation techniques

To test the effects of corporate governance on firm performance, we choose the following
baseline model:
Yit ⫽ ␣0 ⫹ ␤1Xit ⫹ ␤2Cit ⫹ ␧it (1)
where Yit indicates firm performance indicators, Xit is a vector of corporate governance
variables and Cit is a vector of control variables for firm i at time t. ␣0 and ␤s are intercept
and parameters to be estimated, respectively. ␧it is the error term.
As the variables under consideration are of an endogenous nature, the values of the
corporate governance variables are widely influenced by the past performance of the
company, which is a case of the dynamic endogeneity (Wintoki et al., 2012). The ordinary
least squares (OLS) estimators could yield biased and inconsistent results (Maddala and
Lahiri, 2009). It is also likely that our model faces the potential problem of omitted variable
biasness in parameter estimation. Therefore, we utilize fixed-effects estimator, which can
handle the issue of omitted variables. The fixed-effects model also tackles the endogeneity
bias to some extent. Another method which could be useful here is system GMM
(henceforth Sys-GMM), which overcomes the problem of endogeneity and simultaneity
bias. The method is especially appropriate in situations where it is difficult to find
instruments to alleviate the problems. This estimator uses appropriate lags of variables in
level form as instruments for equations in first difference form and conversely for equations
in level form, all of which are combined into a system of equations with options to treat any
of the variables in the system as endogenous. Blundell and Bond (1998) proposed the use
of extra moment conditions that rely on certain stationarity conditions of the initial
observation, as suggested by Arellano and Bover (1995). When these conditions are
satisfied, the resulting Sys-GMM estimator has been shown in Monte Carlo studies by
Blundell and Bond (1998) and Blundell et al. (2000) to have much better finite sample
properties in terms of bias and root mean squared error. Considering these advantages, we
also use the Sys-GMM estimator to analyze the empirical models. This model has
previously been used on the Indian firm-level data studies by Sharma and Mishra (2011)
and Sharma (2012). The validity of the use of instruments is checked using Sargan’s (1958)
test for over-identified restrictions, which tests for the correlation between instruments and
model residuals.

4. Empirical results and discussion

In this section, we present the estimation results of the impact of corporate governance
variables on firm performance measures. At the first stage, we report results for the impact
of each corporate governance variable separately on the indicators of firm performance.

PAGE 426 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016

Subsequently, in the second stage, the impact of all corporate governance variables, along
with control variables, is tested on different measures of firm performance.
Table II reports results of the analyses using accounting firm performance measures, i.e.
ROA, ROE and NPM, as the dependent variables in alternative models. Whereas, board
size, proportion of outside directors, board meeting, CEO duality and institutional
ownership are used as alternative indicators of corporate governance in the models. The
models are estimated using the fixed-effects estimator. Our results suggest that corporate
governance variables do not have a significant impact on ROA, as the estimated
coefficients are not found to be statistically significant (Columns 1 to 5 of the table). Again,
when we repeat this exercise with ROE as the dependent variable, the results do not
appear to be sizable and statistically significant (Columns 6 to 10). The same is the case
when NPM is used as the firm performance measure (Columns 11 to 15).
Table III reports results of the model that examines the impact of corporate governance
variables on the market performance measures (TQ and SR) using panel OLS fixed-effects
estimator. It shows that board size has a positive relationship with market firm performance
indicator, TQ, although it is statistically insignificant (Columns 1 and 6 of the table). Results
also show that board independence is negatively related to TQ and board meetings are
positively associated with TQ. These results are consistent with the findings of previous
studies on India, i.e. Jackling and Johl (2009) and Dwivedi and Jain (2005). The dummy
variable, CEO dual is not significant in explaining the variation in the market performance,
though the sign is estimated to be positive. The positive association between board
meetings and SR implies increasing market returns when a firm conducts more board
meetings (Column 8 of the table). The impact of rest of the corporate governance variables
on SR could not be established because the results are not significant at any of the
conventional levels of significance. These findings are consistent with the work of Ghosh
(2006), who tested the relationship between board characteristics and corporate
performance for Indian listed firms.
The above analysis shows lack of insignificance in results and thus indicates for incomplete
models. Hence, we introduce control variables in the further analysis. We estimate the
impact of corporate governance on different firm performance measures using the
Sys-GMM method. The underlying model is:
Yit ⫽ ⬀0 ⫹ ␤0BSsqrit ⫹ ␤1POsqrit ⫹ ␤2BMsqrit ⫹ ␤3CEOdualit ⫹ ␤4IOit
(2)
⫹ ␤5 * Ageit ⫹ ␤6Sizeit ⫹ ␤7Levit ⫹ ␤8AdvIntit ⫹ ␤9RDintit ⫹ ␧it

where, Yit measures firm performance indicators, i.e. ROA, ROE, NPM, TQ and SR.
BSsqritPOsqritBMsqritCEOdualit and IOit are corporate governance variables of firm i at
period t. AgeitSizeitLevitAdvIntit and RDintit are used as the control variables for firm age,
size, leverage, natural log of advertising and research and development expenditure,
respectively. The calculations of these variables are shown in Table I.
In Table IV, five different analyses are done using Sys-GMM[4] for five different firm
performance measures: ROA, ROE, NPM, TQ and SR in each column, respectively. The
lagged values of dependent variables are used as instruments while conducting the
analysis. The results show that board size is negatively related to accounting firm
performance measure, ROA, but the association is very weak, i.e. 0.0002, implying that
when board size changes by 1 per cent, ROA changes by 0.0002 per cent. The relationship
of ROA with other corporate governance measures could not be established, as they did
not turn out to be statistically significant at any of the conventional levels of significance
(see Column 1 of Table IV).
We have hypothesized board size and meetings to have a positive and negative
relationship with firm performance, respectively. However, our results show that they are
positively associated with TQ, though the association is somewhat weak (see Column 4 of
Table IV). The findings of our study support the results of prior studies by Dalton et al.

VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PAGE 427

PAGE 428 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016
Table II Impact of corporate governance on accounting firm performance using fixed effects
A. Dependent variable–ROA B. Dependent variable–ROE C. Dependent variable–NPM
Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15)

Constant 0.128*** 0.099*** 0.091*** 0.084*** 0.117*** 0.572*** 0.670* 0.353* 0.401** 0.356*** 0.001*** ⫺0.001 0.191 0.185 0.077
(0.036) (0.010) (0.007) (0.028) (0.026) (0.233) (0.361) (0.208) (0.181) (0.078) (0.172) (0.266) (0.154) (0.132) (0.106)
BS ⫺0.0002 ⫺0.003 0.002
(0.001) (0.004) (0.003)
PO 0.013 ⫺0.610 0.355
(0.019) (0.717) (0.529)
BM 0.0003 0.001 ⫺0.003
(0.0003) (0.008) (0.006)
CEOdual 0.114 0.002 ⫺0.151
(0.078) (0.512) (0.372)
IO ⫺0.018 ⫺0.084 0.580
(0.300) (0.896) (1.219)
R2 0.0001 0.0006 0.0002 0.0002 0.0001 0.0005 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001
Notes: *, ** and *** indicate significance at 10, 5 and 1% levels, respectively; the figure in parentheses indicates standard error
 Table III Impact of corporate governance on market firm performance using fixed effects
D. Dependent variable–TQ E. Dependent variable–SR
Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Constant 0.574 (0.841) 3.012** (1.411) ⫺0.384 (0.660) 1.133* (0.652) 0.160 (0.580) 0.810*** (0.149) 1.367*** (0.211) 0.678*** (0.127) 0.941*** (0.111) 1.083*** (0.109)
BS 0.007 (0.013) 0.003 (0.002)
PO ⫺4.547* (2.828) ⫺0.355 (0.410)
BM 0.046* (0.026) 0.011** (0.005)
CEOdual ⫺0.622 (1.847) 0.270 (0.312)
IO 5.666 (6.726) ⫺1.509 (1.244)
R2 0.0001 0.0002 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0006 0.0001 0.0009 0.0004 0.0005
Notes: *, ** and *** indicate significance at 10, 5 and 1% levels, respectively; the figure in parentheses indicates standard error.

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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
PAGE 429
Table IV Impact of corporate governance on firm performance using Sys-GMM results
ROA ROE NPM TQ SR
Variables 1 2 3 4 5

Constant 0.203*** (0.058) 0.532* (1.279) ⫺13.102*** (1.642) 16.426*** (5.725) 0.849 (1.524)
BS ⫺0.0002* (0.0001) ⫺0.002 (0.002) 0.0004 (0.003) 0.022* (0.013) ⫺0.003 (0.003)
PO 0.025 (0.020) 0.051 (0.404) ⫺0.236 (0.542) ⫺5.598*** (1.993) ⫺0.772 (0.504)
BM 0.00001 (0.0002) 0.002 (0.004) ⫺0.0008 (0.005) 0.026* (0.020) 0.002 (0.005)
CEOdual ⫺0.002 (0.017) ⫺0.038 (0.353) 0.340 (0.474) 1.419 (1.730) ⫺0.606 (0.427)
IO 0.023 (0.071) 0.985 (1.473) ⫺1.814 (1.970) 19.389*** (7.112) 1.211 (1.747)
Age 0.003* (0.001) ⫺0.023* (0.035) 0.006 (0.046) ⫺0.605*** (0.183) ⫺0.061 (0.042)
Lev ⫺0.296*** (0.007) ⫺0.103 (0.164) ⫺0.543*** (0.214) ⫺0.168 (0.714) ⫺0.166 (0.175)
Size ⫺0.007 (0.006) 0.052 (0.160) 1.965*** (0.192) ⫺0.064 (0.690) 0.409** (0.189)
AdvInt ⫺0.0003 (0.005) 0.122 (0.100) ⫺0.107 (0.135) ⫺0.271 (0.495) 0.117 (0.120)
RDint ⫺0.005 (0.005) ⫺0.018 (0.110) ⫺0.125 (0.147) 0.177 (0.546) 0.121 (0.123)
Perft-1 0.084*** (0.005) 0.076*** (0.006) ⫺0.157*** (0.010) 1.439*** (0.006) ⫺0.010 (0.010)
P- value (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Observations 10,051 10,048 9,966 10,182 8,048
Notes: *, ** and *** indicate significance at 10, 5 and 1% levels, respectively; the figure in parentheses indicates standard error

(1998) and Pearce and Zahra (1992), which indicated that larger boards are associated
with a greater depth of intellectual knowledge, which helps in improving decision-making
process, which in turn improves firm performance. These findings support the resource
dependency theory in terms that access to various resources has a positive influence on
firm performance. The findings of Kathuria and Dash (1999) and Jackling and Johl (2009)
for Indian firms also estimate an improvement in performance with an increase in board
size. Dwivedi and Jain (2005) had also shown a positive association between board size
and firm value. Our findings exhibit a positive relationship between board meeting and firm
performance, which is consistent with the viewpoints of Lipton and Lorsch (1992) and
Zahra and Pearce (1989).
Furthermore, contrary to the expectations, the board independence is negatively
related to TQ, perhaps because of the lack of independence given to outside directors.
Often the independent directors of Indian firms are seen working for the management
because they are selected by the management itself. Bhagat and Bolton (2002)
examined the same for US firms for the period 2000-2004, and they found that board
independence is negatively correlated with operating performance, which is consistent
with the previous findings on India, i.e. Jackling and Johl (2009) and Dwivedi and Jain
(2005). Our results also provide support for the hypothesis that higher degree of
institutions’ shares in the firms is a positive factor for firm performance (TQ). It may be
because institutional shareholding is a key signal to other investors about the potential
profitability of the firm. This leads to the demand for such shares and, thus, improves
market valuation of such firms, as shown by Kyereboah-Coleman (2007). The dummy
variable, CEOdual, is positively related to firm’s performance measure, TQ, though it
fails to pass the statistical test (see Column 4 of Table IV). Some studies like that by
Balinga et al. (1996) found no statistically significant inter-linkage between these
issues. Some authors have shown that there is no significant difference between the
firms with CEO duality and those without it (Daily and Dalton, 1997; Dalton et al., 1998).
Similarly, our result for Indian firms also indicated that CEO duality and firm
performance are insulated to each other.
The age of firm is negatively associated with TQ, implying that the new firms are performing
comparatively better. It is also observed from the results of Table IV that corporate
governance has a significant and sizable impact on market firm performance measure, TQ,
but it is not a crucial determinant. We also attempt to measure the impact of corporate
governance on stock returns, and the results indicate that effects of corporate governance
variables on stock returns are not significant, which supports the findings of Garg (2007).
Our findings related to other control variables indicate that leverage is found to be

PAGE 430 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016

negatively related to ROA, implying that firms with low leverage are likely to perform better.
Our results also indicate that impact of corporate governance variables on other firm
performance measures (ROE, NPM and SR) could not be established for the sample firms,
as they are not found to be statistically significant.

5. Conclusion and implications

The present study serves as a pointer to the corporate governance and firm performance
relationship for Indian manufacturing industry. Results of the study document that the
relationship between corporate governance and performance is not very strong in India.
This is maybe because the guidelines and regulations are not followed by companies very
strictly in the initial years of the sample period. Our main findings in this study are: first, the
results show that board size is negatively related to ROA. Second, the board meetings are
found to be positively associated with firm performance, though the association is slightly
weak. Third, ROE, profitability and stock returns are not found to be related to corporate
governance indicators of firm. Also, CEO duality is not found to be related to any
performance measure; thus, it does not seem to be a crucial determinant of firm
performance.
Our findings in this study have important implications for putting into practice good
corporate governance across developing countries in general and emerging countries in
particular. The outcomes of our analyses advocated that companies that comply with good
corporate governance practices can expect to achieve higher accounting and market
performance. Theoretically, it implies that good corporate governance practices lead to
reduced agency costs. Hence, this implies that firms of the developing world can possibly
enhance their performance by implementing good corporate governance practices.
However, our findings on the association between several governance indicators and
company performance indicators suggest that not all corporate governance indicators
significantly affect company performance.
The negative relationship between board independence and firm performance can be
attributed to the fact that the concept of board independence is a new phenomenon in
developing countries, and hence, it might take a few more years to have a momentous
impact of this on firm performance. It is also observed in the boards of many companies of
developing countries that the same person is working as an independent director on the
boards of many firms, maybe because there are limited people suitable for the position of
independent directors. In such companies, monitoring and judgments by the independent
directors may not be bias-free and will be influenced by what they expect others to do on
the board where they are the executive directors. For US corporations, Klein (1998)
provided evidence that directors are not the puppets of management but are actually
serving the firm. The companies in merging countries need to ensure that the independent
directors are not hired for namesake but actually act independently as in the case of
developed countries. Therefore, a clear criterion should be put in place for becoming an
independent director in a company and the guidelines on corporate governance should
take into account this “Cross-board” phenomenon.
Furthermore, an increase in board size leads to better performance only when it adds
diversity to the board; therefore, we support the suggestion by Cadbury (2002) that people
with different backgrounds and perspectives should be appointed for the posts of
independent directors. Also, it is widely seen that a large proportion of family-owned firms
in developing countries tends to restrict the executive management positions to family
members, which diminishes the role of outside directors in the firm. Therefore, findings of
this research can merit the attention of shareholders, companies and policymakers in
developing countries to know the risk of engaging family members and non-professional
members in the companies’ board.

VOL. 16 NO. 2 2016 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PAGE 431

 There are many factors which influence the firm performance and not all of them are used
in this study to control the models mainly because of their lack of availability in the
database. Nevertheless, it can be hoped that attempts such as this study will generate
more debate on the issue and reason for further research in this area, especially in the
context of developing countries. Future researchers can work further by using a broader
spectrum of variables like directors’ remuneration, their shareholding, audit, remuneration
or other board committees. It can also be augmented by using qualitative aspects of the
board that influence firm performance, such as board decision-making process or
director’s perception on the role of board, presence of women directors on board,
qualification and age of the director, etc. Also, it is not only the board characteristics which
influence firm performance but also the other way round. Only a few studies like those by
Garg (2007), Valenti et al. (2011) and Arora and Sharma (2015) have tested this reverse
relationship, i.e. the impact of firm performance on board characteristics. For policy
formulation and decision-making, it is relevant to test the reverse causality too. Finally, other
relevant future research agendas could be to examine the impact of gender diversity or
board diversity on firm performance, which is unfairly ignored in the existing literature.

Notes
1. During 1990s, there have been a series of corporate scams, such as Harshad Mehta Scam, Ketan
Parikh Scam, UTI Scam, the Vanishing Company Scam, Bhansali Scam and the most unforgettable
Satyam scandal.

2. The Indian manufacturing sector has witnessed tremendous transformation in the new millennium
in the era of liberalization, privatization and globalization. It is the backbone of Indian economy,
contributing nearly 16 per cent to the GDP of the country.

3. The PROWESS database (Release 4.0) is maintained by CMIE and is broadly similar to the
Compustat database of US firms. It is increasingly being used in the literature for firm-level analysis
of the Indian industry and contains financial information on around 27,000 companies, either listed
on stock exchanges or the major unlisted companies.

4. The same analysis has also been done using the fixed-effects method; results are quite similar to
that of Sys-GMM. These results are not reported here to conserve the space. However, they can
be made available on request from the corresponding author.

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Corresponding author
Chandan Sharma can be contacted at: [email protected]

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