Stock market reactions to announcements of the board of directors: evidence from Italy

The board of directors plays an important role in corporate governance. It is an internal mechanism that controls and monitors the actions of managers and aligns the utility functions between corporate owners and managers. The board of directors performs multiple functions that concern, for example, the replacement of the managers, financial policy, the preparation of strategic plans and other actions that affect the performance of the company. The board plays an important role since on the one hand it controls the actions of management and on the other it advises the management regarding the strategies to be adopted. In this study, 100 announcements regarding the appointment of the board of directors of 100 Italian listed companies during the period 2012-2014 are investigated. The results show a positive reaction within 20 days around the announcement date. In four of the six time windows, cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) are positive and statistically significant. The positive reaction of the market would appear, however, to be linked more to the composition of the board of directors than to the size of the board of directors.