The impact of board composition and internationalisation on strategic change: Longitudinal empirical evidence

This study looks at the effect of board composition on a firm’s propensity for strategic change. We hypothesise that board composition influences strategic change and internationalisation moderates this relationship. We do a longitudinal study of 433 listed firms in the United States. The findings indicate that the board composition represented by two variables, namely board size and CEO duality, leads to less strategic change. In contrast, the third variable, interlocking directorships, leads to more strategic change. Our results also suggest that internationalisation mitigates the negative impact of board size and CEO duality on strategic change and strengthens the positive impact of interlocking directorships. JEL Classification: C12, L20, L21, M10