The Board of Directors and Firm Performance: Evidence from Palestinian Listed Firms

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of board of directors characteristics on firm performance by firms listed on Palestine Exchange for the financials year 2001. Accounting performance measures including return on assets and return on equity are used to proxy firm performance. Characteristics of board of directors are represented by board independence, size, frequency of meetings, leadership structure and diversity. Ordinary Least Squares regression results indicate that board diversity has a negative and significant association with firm performance. However, remaining characteristics have insignificant effect on firm performance. This indicates that the result is not in the line with agency theory.

Keywords: Board of directors, Firm performance, Agency theory, Palestine Exchange

DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/13-12-04

Publication date:June 30^th 2022