The influence of board members with foreign experience on the timely delivery of financial reports

Abstract

This study examines the effect of the presence of foreign experts on a company’s board on the important characteristic of high-quality financial reporting: timeliness. We focus on experts with foreign experience (EFEs) who are board members, in the context of a dual board model. The sample is drawn from the population of Polish nonfinancial firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange during 2010–2015. For analysis, we use the generalised method of moments with fixed effects. After controlling for corporate governance and firm characteristics, we find that the presence of EFEs shortens the time necessary to deliver financial reports. Our findings enrich the knowledge on the monitoring role of EFEs in corporate governance, especially in the context of the insider model of corporate governance and a dual board structure. The findings have significant implications for policy formulation and provide evidence that the presence of EFEs on supervisory boards may lead to increased timeliness of financial reporting, thus increasing financial reporting quality.