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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 48 No. 2-3 2009

Investor perceptions of board performance: Evidence from uncontested director elections

Paul E. Fischer1; Jeffrey Gramlich2,3; Brian P. Miller4; Hal D. White5,6

1 Pennsylvania State University · 2 University of Southern Maine · 3 Copenhagen Business School · 4 Indiana University Bloomington · 5 Ross School · 6 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Abstract

This paper provides evidence that uncontested director elections provide informative polls of investor perceptions regarding board performance. We find that higher (lower) vote approval is associated with lower (higher) stock price reactions to subsequent announcements of management turnovers. In addition, firms with low vote approval are more likely to experience CEO turnover, greater board turnover, lower CEO compensation, fewer and better-received acquisitions, and more and better-received divestitures in the future. These findings hold after controlling for other variables reflecting or determining investor perceptions, suggesting that elections not only inform as a summary statistic, but incrementally inform as well.

DOI
10.1016/j.jacceco.2009.09.002
Volume
48
Issue
2-3
Pages
172-189
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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