Which Characteristics Determine a Perfect Board of Directors? A Review of the Economic Literature

Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The board of directors is an important organizational institution, whose purpose is to reduce the agency problem inherited by the management of a firm. However, because of various accounting frauds and failures in corporate governance in the history of larger corporations, there is increasing public attention regarding the effectiveness of a board and how a perfect board should be designed to increase their oversight quality. Because of these many researchers investigated this topic. This paper reviews recent academic research regarding the characteristics of a perfect board of directors. Firstly, the paper analyses different board characteristics, then it investigates the importance of the composition and size of the audit committee.