13th Annual International Management Conference Proceeding

H7: Firms with diverse boards are in a better position to leverage intellectual capital
H8: A board of Directors that is not determined largely by prevailing institutionalized norms will have a positive effect
on corporate performance based on future viability, financial performance, shareholder value, market performance and
sales performance
H9: A diverse board of directors affects the culture of the organization in question and consequently corporate voluntary
disclosure proclivity.
H10: The amount of Voluntary corporate disclosure depends on intellectual available in the focal firm and hence
affecting firm performance.
Theoretical and methodological implications
Previous research have concentrated on the use of financial accounting measures of corporate performance and the use of
accounting data obtained from only listed firms. Hence, they have almost all invariably employed quantitative research.
Our research will be a blend of quantitative and qualitative study (methological triangulation). In addition, a major
criticism of extant board research is that it focuses almost exclusively on large, mature organisations (Daily & Dalton,
1993; Dalton & Kesner, 1983) as compared with smaller and newer firms. We will control for such factors like age of
the firm, industry, size and other demographic factors aware that Individual company differences in demographic factors
can have an impact on the relationships between variables (Marco, Mirjam and Cools, 2003). Given the fact that most
Ugandan firms are not listed, we will include non-listed firms in addition to a census of all listed firms in Uganda on the
Uganda Securities Exchange. We will use non-probabilistic sampling (in particular snowballing) with the aim of getting
pure play comparison companies. Our research frame will require that the amount (importance) of intellectual capital be
measured within the firms. A survey will be conducted to fulfill this need.
Conclusion
Researchers studying corporate boards have employed a wide set of theoretical perspectives to understand the
characteristics, behavior, and effects of executives (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996). Agency theory (Jensen and Meckling,
1976) is among the most recognised in research on the contribution of boards (Zahra and Pearce, 1989) as is the use of
the board as a mechanism for managing resource dependencies (Johnson, et al., 1996; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). It is
common for researchers also to invoke institutional theory (DiMagio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977) and
have examined the role of social networks (Granovetter, 1985) in boards (Birley, 1985; Gulati & Gargiulo, 1999;
Larson, 1992; Westphal, 1999). Our theoretical review has produced a theoretical concern brought about by the gaps in
the knowledge we have identified and we feel that filling these gaps will result in advancement of knowledge in the area
of corporate performance. We have argued that these (see the review) theories’ corporate performance predictive validity
is contingent upon the existence of appropriate intellectual capital and gender diversity on the board. These together
with governance mechanisms, have been employed as predictor variables of corporate performance.
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