Efficiency of Board Composition on Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from listed Manufacturing Firms of Bangladesh

Corporate governance has received massive attention in academic research nowadays due to several recent corporate failures. Inefficiency of corporate governance mechanisms have driven the minds of the researchers and the policy makers to look with more insights into this area. Board composition, as part of corporate governance mechanism, plays a significant role to achieve company's goals or objectives and ensure transparency and accountability. The objective of this study is to find out the efficiency of board composition through board size, independent directors and female directors on firm performance in the listed manufacturing firms of Bangladesh. In this study, a sample of 162 firm years are considered as the sample during the period of 2011 to 2016. This study finds that large board is the significant explanatory variable in improving firm performance. This study also shows that board independence and female directors have no significant association with firm performance which implies that instrument of corporate governance mechanism particularly board composition is very weak. This study recommends that code of corporate governance, specially the role of independent directors and female directors, should be reformed in the light of cultural and institutional context along with the effective enforcement.