Various regulatory governance initiatives have strived for board diversity, as diversity stimulates creativity, encourages discussion, and enlarges the board's knowledge base. However, increased diversity results in superior decision-making only when the board is free from conflicts and acts as a cohesive group. In this paper, we extend existing corporate governance research by introducing faultline theory to the board of directors (Lau and Murnighan 1998). The idea is to show how a board's diversity structure can give rise to the formation of subgroups along faultlines. The resulting subgroup formation may, in turn, reduce board effectiveness. Using a sample of U.S.-listed firms between 2008 and 2012, results suggest that boards with strong faultlines are associated with lower firm performance, lower CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, and higher abnormal CEO compensation. Understanding potential unintended consequences of board diversity could be of interest to regulators and companies that plan to appoint new directors to the board. JEL Classifications: G30; G38; D70; M41.

We examine whether management faultlines (i.e., dissimilar groupings among executives) are related to management forecast processes and outcomes. Management faultlines are formed based on the simultaneous alignment of senior executives' demographic characteristics (e.g., an MBA background, elite school education, gender, board experience, age, or tenure). We argue that management faultlines impede information sharing, create conflicts, and divert managerial attention away from common‐goal tasks. We hypothesize and find that management faultlines are associated with lower management forecast quality. Furthermore, the faultline effect is more pronounced when forecasting difficulty is high. In contrast, the faultline effect is mitigated when a firm nurtures a supportive and diverse workplace. In addition, we find that management forecast propensity and frequency are negatively associated with management faultlines. Overall, our findings suggest that management faultlines compromise management forecast processes and outcomes. In particular, since faultlines can arise as a company diversifies, boards should be aware of these unintended consequences and how they can be mitigated.

Prior research finds the presence of accounting financial expertise (AFE) on the audit committee (AC) enhances financial reporting quality. The current study provides a broad examination of the effect of the AFE residing in the AC chair on the monitoring of financial reporting quality and the audit process. Based on a sample of over 13,840 observations from U.S. public companies, we find that AFE of the AC chair  is associated with lower levels of earnings management and enhanced monitoring of the audit process. When augmented by AC members with AFE, AC chair AFE is also negatively associated with reduced misstatement risk. This finding suggests appointing an AFE to the AC may not in itself be sufficient to fully enhance oversight quality, unless the committee also has a chair who possesses AFE. Finally, chair AFE is also found to enhance the likelihood of reporting material control weaknesses and goodwill impairments.

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