Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1111/corg.70002

Publication Title

Corporate Governance: An International Review

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

28 pp.

Abstract

Research Question/Issue

The impact of board structures on firm performance remains a contentious governance topic with competing theoretical paradigms and inconclusive empirical support. Scholars propose that national culture could reconcile contradictory evidence; yet, argumentation is fragmented and direct tests are rare. We meta‐analyzed 513 samples across 54 countries to examine relationships between board structures (i.e., board size, board independence, and CEO duality) and firm performance. We model national culture, using Hofstede's six cultural dimensions, as moderators to test whether these relationships align with agency or stewardship theory across different cultural settings.

Research findings/insights

Findings indicate a substantial moderating role of national culture on board structure–firm performance relationships. However, the performance implications of board structures are contingent, varying by the specific board attribute, cultural dimension, and performance metric considered (accounting‐based, market‐based, or growth). For example, cultural moderators often have opposite effects on accounting versus market outcomes, and certain board features (notably, CEO duality) are more strongly influenced by culture than others. Our study is the first to meta‐analyze board structure effects on growth‐oriented performance measures and provides the most comprehensive meta‐analytic estimates, sharpening understanding of the boundary conditions between agency and stewardship logic.

Theoretical/academic implications

Integrating national cultural values into competing agency versus stewardship paradigms, our research offers a nuanced, culture‐contingent governance framework. Synthesizing theoretical arguments and empirical evidence, we present a roadmap of saturated, contested, and nascent research questions to steer future corporate governance scholarship.

Practitioner/Policy implications

Our findings counter one‐size‐fits‐all approaches, suggesting that boards, investors, and regulators tailor board architecture and governance codes to local cultural norms.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Data Availability

Article states: "Data can be made available on valuable request from the authors."

Original Publication Citation

Farrell, M., Willis, Chris H., Siangchokyoo, N., Klinger, Ryan L., Kreugel, J., Usta, H., Tian, Timiry R., Thaviphoke, Y., & Wilson, S. (2025). Board attributes, firm performance, and the moderating role of national culture: A meta‐analysis. Corporate Governance: An International Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.70002

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