This study seeks to develop understanding from the literature the important relationship between corporate governance mechanism especially board characteristics and R&D strategic decision making.  Some board characteristics, such as board size and independence are positively associated with firm performance. Directors of different ethnic, cultural backgrounds and different nationalities stimulate a firm to improve or develop new products. Older directors are less risk-tolerant than younger ones and invest less in risky R&D investments. The effect of board size on performance is negative and significant, while it has a positive and significant impact on R&D investment. Therefore, board characteristics are the considerable factors in affecting the effective R&D strategic decision making.

This study seeks to find the rank of corporate governance characteristics that affect bank performance. The artificial neural network is employed in the analysis instead of regression analysis. There are two dependent variables which are ROA and PER that represents the accounting performance and the market performance. Size of the board of directors, gender diversity of the board, and board independence are the corporate governance characteristics considered in this study. Board independence is the most important factor in determining both accounting performance and market performance. However, the size of the board of directors becomes the second-factor affecting a bank’s accounting performance and the last factor affecting the bank’s market performance, while gender diversity is the last factor for accounting performance and the second factor for market performance.