The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:58:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Globalizing the Boardroom – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Globalizing the Boardroom https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/03/14/globalizing-the-boardroom/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=globalizing-the-boardroom https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/03/14/globalizing-the-boardroom/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:34:56 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/?p=26772?d=20150105135227EST Posted by R. Christopher Small, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Editor's Note:

The following post comes to us from Ronald Masulis of the Australian School of Business at the University of New South Wales, Cong Wang of the Department of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Fei Xie of the School of Management at George Mason University.

In the paper, Globalizing the Boardroom – The Effects of Foreign Directors on Corporate Governance and Firm Performance, forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting and Economics as published by Elsevier we examine independent directors of U.S. firms who are based in foreign countries, and investigate how their geographic location affects their ability to perform their monitoring and advisory duties. About 13% of U.S. firms have foreign independent directors on their boards. On the positive side, FIDs can utilize their international background and expertise to enhance the advisory function of boards and benefit firms with substantial foreign operations or plans for overseas expansion. On the negative side, the geographic distance between FIDs and corporate headquarters, as well as national borders with passport and custom controls create significant obstacles for FIDs to effectively participate in the governance of U.S. firms.

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