Overcommitted to show up in the board? The moderating effect of ownership

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of multiple directorships on board meeting attendance at the individual director level. By using the individual director attendance rate in Pakistani-listed firms, we find no direct effect of multiple board appointments (director busyness) on the tendency to remain absent from board meetings, even not when making the distinction between executive and non-executive directors. Furthermore, we introduce ownership percentage as an important moderator in the model. Our results show that higher directors' shareholdings will motivate busy non-executive directors to attend more board meetings. In contrast, higher executive director busyness will lead to declining board meeting attendance when director ownership is higher.