Autonomous Leadership: How Board Independence Shapes Machine Learning Based Corporate Culture in Thailand

ABSTRACT Corporate culture is a critical driver of corporate social responsibility, shaping how firms internalize sustainability, social and environmental concerns, yet its governance antecedents are less understood. Motivated by the need to understand how governance structures affect organizational values and behavior, we explore the relationship between board independence and corporate culture for Thai listed firms over the 2000–2021 period. To construct a corporate culture score, we apply a word‐embedding machine learning approach (word2Vec) on companies' annual registration reports (Form 56‐1) of Thai listed firms and test the effect of board independence on the constructed corporate score. Drawing upon theories of agency, stakeholder and virtue ethics, we find support for the board independence enhanced culture hypothesis , which posits a positive influence of board independence on corporate culture. We document that a one‐standard deviation increase in board independence enhances corporate culture by 3.9% with a stronger effect on people‐oriented than technology‐oriented culture. Independent board, as an effective governance mechanism, promotes ethical behavior, transparency and accountability, ensuring that management decisions align with stakeholders' interests. Our study underscores the importance of independent governance in fostering a positive corporate culture. Governance structures can actively influence the values and norms that underpin socially responsible and sustainable business behavior. This highlights the importance of considering culture as a transmission channel through which governance reforms may ultimately affect corporate social responsibility outcomes.