Does the Quality of Director Fusion Raise the Risk of Corporate Debt Default?

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of the instability brought about by the change of directors on the risk of corporate debt default from the perspective of the fusion of old and new directors. Combining Ab-sorptive Capacity Theory and Embeddedness Theory, on the one hand, analyzes the threshold effect of the hard integration of directors on corporate debt default risk from the proportion of new directors; on the other hand, through the proportion of the number of well-integrated people, and from the perspective of ability-based role matching and cultural-based group matching between new and old directors, it is judging the individual and interactive effects of director soft fusion quality on firm debt default risk. Through the above two perspectives, we comprehensively judge the independent and interactive effects of directors’ smooth integration quality on corporate debt default risk and consolidate. The study found that the proportion of new directors positively correlates with the increase in the risk of corporate debt default. The weakening of the threshold effect shows that the hard integration of the number of new directors alone will reduce instability due to the increase in the number of new directors, thereby reducing the risk of corporate debt default. Regarding the smooth integration of directors, the role matching between old and new directors has a rejuvenating contribution to corporate debt default risk and has a significant threshold effect. At the same time, group matching positively correlates with corporate debt default risk but has no threshold effect. After the interaction between the two, group matching contributes to debt default risk.