Corporate board committees and corporate outcomes: an international systematic literature review and agenda for future research

This paper comprehensively reviews the current body of international accounting literature regarding advisory/monitoring committees and corporate outcomes. Specifically, it synthesizes, appraises, and extends current knowledge on the (a) theoretical (i.e., economic, accounting/corporate governance, sociological and socio-psychological) perspectives and (b) empirical evidence of the observable and less visible attributes at both the individual and committee levels and their link with a wide range (financial/non-financial) of corporate outcomes. Using the systematic literature review method, 304 articles from 59 journals in the fields of accounting and finance that were published between January 1992 and December 2018 are reviewed. The main findings are as follows. First and theoretically, agency theory is the most dominant applied theory/studies with no application of theory at all (descriptive), while the application of integrated theoretical frameworks is lacking in the reviewed articles. Secondly, the existing empirical evidence focusses excessively on (a) monitoring instead of advisory committees and (b) observable rather than less visible committee attributes. Thirdly, scarcity of cross-country studies along with methodological limitations relating to measurement inconsistencies, insufficiency of variables, and dominance of quantitative studies, among others, are identified. Finally, promising future research avenues are outlined.

Accounting, advisory and monitoring roles, corporate board subcommittees, corporate governance, corporate outcomes

10.1142/S1094406021500013

0020-7063

Alhossini, Mohammed Abdulaziz M

71ffd7dc-3d4e-4730-9124-cc5dec36308b

Ntim, Collins

1f344edc-8005-4e96-8972-d56c4dade46b

Zalata, Alaa

0fc2c56d-97ad-44ce-ab31-63ca335dcef6