Drawing on the status characteristic theory, we investigate the effect of gender on board directors' status ranking and find that all else being equal, female directors' status ranking is 81.48% of one position lower than that of male directors, a discrepancy that is attributable to gender. We...

This study investigates the role of independent board members in insider-controlled firms by examining the effectiveness of independent boards in reducing information asymmetry in family versus non-family firms. We show a negative relation between the proportion of independent directors and...