Corporate Board Attributes, Team Effectiveness and Financial Performance

Abstract

Researchers have recently begun to integrate the literatures on corporate boards and team effectiveness in an effort to better understand how boards function and impact company performance. This study identifies five attributes of high-performing teams – knowledge, information, power, incentives and opportunity/time – and argues that these attributes will promote board effectiveness, which in turn influence corporate financial performance. These relationships are investigated using combined survey and archival sources of data for 210 Fortune 1000 companies. Findings indicate that most team effectiveness attributes are associated with higher levels of board effectiveness as rated by the board directors, and that board effectiveness is significantly related to corporate financial performance.