This paper tests the relation between political connection of board members and conference calls. We use Taiwanese listed firms as our sample and collect political background data of board members from 2008 to 2011. We define a board is politically connected if a specific member is or was a central government official, an elected representative, or holding a post in a political party. We find that politically connected boards are less willing to hold conference calls. This result suggests that firms with board members with political backgrounds are more likely to restrict information outflows to avoid public attention or lower monitoring from outsiders. Using a sample including only firms that hold conference calls, we find that firms with politically connected boards give more information in the conferences relative to firms without political boards. We conjecture this is probably because politically connected boards attract more public attention and once they decide to hold a conference, they tend to disclosure more information in the conference in order to reduce outsiders’ concerns toward its political influences. Moreover, we find that each type of political position affects differently on the holding of conference calls and the information disclosed in the conferences.
英文關鍵字
Board of Directors, Political Connection, Conference Calls, Information Transparency
