We study the influence of locally-rooted directors (LRDs)—board members with personal ties to a company’s geographic location—on firm performance. On the one hand, LRDs may provide valuable local know-how and access to local networks. On the other hand, as their appointments may go back to social ties with insiders (e.g., corporate directors, top executives, or large shareholders), LRDs may be used to extract rents and lack relevant experience, business skills, and independence. Using the directors’ alma mater as a proxy for local roots, LRDs turn out to be heavily overrepresented, making up 30% of all directors in our sample. We show that LRDs are negatively related to Tobin’s Q. However, this finding does not apply to domestically-oriented companies, i.e., firms without material foreign sales, and firms in regulated industries. Thus, while the results indicate that LRDs harm firm performance on average, their presence may be optimal in some cases.

我们研究本地董事 (LRD)（与公司地理位置有个人联系的董事会成员）对公司绩效的影响。一方面，LRD 可以提供宝贵的本地知识和本地网络的访问权限。另一方面，由于他们的任命可能会追溯到与内部人士（例如公司董事、高管或大股东）的社会关系，长官可能会被用来榨取租金，并且缺乏相关经验、业务技能和独立性。以董事的母校作为本土根源的代表，LRD 的比例被严重过高，占我们样本中所有董事的 30%。我们表明 LRD 与托宾 Q 负相关。然而，这一发现不适用于面向国内的公司，即没有重大国外销售的公司和受监管行业的公司。因此，虽然结果表明 LRD 会损害公司的平均绩效，但在某些情况下，它们的存在可能是最佳的。