The determinants of board meetings: evidence from categorical analysis

This paper aims at investigating the determinants of board meetings as an index for board activity including the monitoring role of the boards. The research sample is composed of 120 UK firms based on their market capitalization for the period from 2003 to 2008. We apply Multinomial logistic modelling and conditional logistic modelling to investigate the frequency of board meetings. The results provide evidence for the importance of internal corporate governance monitoring systems on board meetings. We find that board size and structure are positively related to board meetings. This means that internal governance monitoring mechanisms are seen as complements to each other. In addition, we detect a negative impact of audit committee diligence on board meetings. This can be explained by the delegation of the authority between the boards and the audit committees. Moreover, the study reports no evidence that the board meetings are reduced when there is a CEO duality. Finally, the results show that firm size, leverage, free cash flows, and Tobin’s Q have an impact on board meetings. This research offers the first major study to examine the determinants of board meetings using UK non-financial firms. The paucity of the UK literature, regarding the board effectiveness in UK reinforces the empirical importance of the results for researchers, managers, and UK policy makers.