獨立董事與經營階層間之社會性連結是否影響董事會監督效能？

Do the Social Ties between Independent Directors and Executives Affect the Oversight Effectiveness of the Board?

本研究旨在探討獨立董事與經營者之間的社會性連結對董事會監督效能有何影響。獨立性是董事會發揮效能的關鍵，不過，現有法規對獨立性要求並無法有效地辨識獨立董事與經營者間是否存在社會性連結。社會性連結一般是透過分享共同經驗和共同認知來建立的，從而促進了相互間的信任和溝通，進而形成互惠關係。但是，基於情誼或互惠的考量，董事可能會缺乏挑戰經營者決策的意願，這可能會削弱董事會的監督效能。實證結果發現，提名連結會損害董事會的監督功能，惟審計產業專家的參與能可以使此負面效果變為不顯著關係。另一方面，專業連結和友情連結可以抑制盈餘管理，然而審計產業專家在這方面並未提供增額的監督效能。

The purpose of this research is to examine how social ties between a firm’s executives and independent directors affect the monitoring function of the board. Board independence is the key to board effectiveness. While directors can be nominally independent of the executives, they could have social ties to executives. An independent director with social ties to an executive may weaken their ability to prevent the executive from opportunistically pursuing their own interests at the expense of shareholders. The findings suggest that nomination ties may diminish the quality of the board’s oversight; however, industry specialist auditors can make this negative effect become insignificant. Further results indicate that industry specialist auditors do not play such a strengthening role in cases where professional ties or friendship ties directors have positive effects on the board’s oversight quality.