Can University Connections of Independent Directors Improve Firm Performance? Evidence of Chinese Listed Manufacturing Companies over 2008-2013
Changzheng Zhang
Xi’an University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, Xi’an, China
Jiao Zhang *
Xi’an University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, Xi’an, China
Qian Guo
Xi’an University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, Xi’an, China
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The paper investigates the effect of the university connections of independent directors on firm performance by choosing the panel data consisting of 2994 firm-year observations in Chinese listed manufacturing companies during 2008-2013 as research sample. Empirical analysis by adopting the multiple regression analysis based on OLS and the independent samples test with SPSS19.0 makes the following new finding: In the manufacturing companies in China, there is a positive relationship between the university connections of independent directors and firm performance measured by ROE, ROA and EPS. Further investigation shows that the independent directors from the universities would produce a higher productivity in the traditional labor-intensive firms rather in the technology-intensive firms, and what is more, if the independent directors from the universities attend more board meetings, their positive role in affecting firm performance would be enhanced.
Keywords: University connections, independent directors, firm performance, listed companies, China