Title: Board structure composition and financial distress likelihood of Indian firms

Authors: Ammar Hafeez; Sujata Kar

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India ' Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India

Abstract: This study based on a dataset of 363 BSE listed Indian firms, examines how the composition and structure of their boards, proxied by the corporate governance variables, impact the likelihood of financial distress. Ten variables representing different features of the board were undertaken. These include board size, independent directors, non-executive directors, CEO-chair duality, chair concurrent position, CEO concurrent position, presence of female directors, ownership structure, lineage and having family members on board. Financial ratios and other corporate governance variables were entered as control variables along with industry dummies. Results report that the variables, CEO chair duality, government-owned firms, chair concurrent position, and non-lineage firms reduce the financial distress likelihood. Our results are robust to multiple criteria of the financial distress measures. Moreover, they corroborate one of the important guidelines of the separation of CEO and chairperson positions, suggested by the Kotak Committee in 2017.

Keywords: financial distress; bankruptcy; board structure; Kotak Committee; corporate governance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMP.2023.127679

International Journal of Management Practice, 2023 Vol.16 No.1, pp.104 - 139

Received: 24 Jun 2020
Accepted: 17 Jun 2021
Published online: 14 Dec 2022 *