Levels of ownership structure, board composition and board size seem unimportant in New Zealand

Abstract

The relationship between firm performance and board composition, size and equity ownership structure are investigated in this paper for a sample of 426 annual observations of New Zealand firms across a five-year period. No statistically significant relationships could be found. These results are consistent with several previous studies and cast doubt on agency explanations used to relate board ownership to corporate performance. This may be due to endogenous factors or due to the small size of the New Zealand pool of corporate directors.