Abstract
This study investigates the appointment of new corporate directors to various boardroom committees. Resource dependency and institutional theory provide theoretical reasons for why gender and human capital characteristics would differentiate committee membership. Using a matched sample of 159 women and 159 men during the period 1996 to 2004, this study finds that new female corporate directors are better utilized than their male counterparts. In their first year of joining a board, these new female corporate directors are appointed to both major and minor board committees, while the majority of the new male directors are appointed to no board committees. Overall, this study finds that gender rather than human capital characteristics determines the boardroom committee membership of new corporate directors.
Highlights
Appointments to a board of directors are a means for a firm to co-opt important resources (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978)
This difference is statistically significant (p
The results indicate that human capital characteristics rarely influence board committee appointments
Summary
Appointments to a board of directors are a means for a firm to co-opt important resources (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). The human capital construct has been used to explain how firms deal with complexity (Markarian & Parbonetti, 2007) and strategic changes (Haynes & Hillman, 2010), as well as the appointment of individuals to boards of directors (Baysinger & Zardkoohi, 1986; Dunn, 2011; Hillman et al, 2000, 2002; Singh et al, 2008) and to board committees (Bilimore & Piderit, 1994; Kesner, 1988; Peterson & Philpot, 2006). This study follows this line of research by examining the human capital characteristics of new board of director members and their appointment to board committees
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