Board characteristics and board monitoring function — Evidence from listed company of China

The literature on the relationships between board attributes and corporate performance is mixed, and one important reason is that the intermediate variable, i.e., board behaviors are ignored. With the data coming from listed company of China, the paper empirically researches the relationship between the characteristics and monitoring function of board. Using Principal Component Analysis, we get 6 variables reflecting the characteristics of board and 4 variables for the monitoring function. The study shows that the share held ratio of board´s members has a negative impact on the directing function of board significantly, but the gender ratio and the average age of board members has a positive impact on the position function of board significantly. This may be valuable to regulate the behavior of board.