Board size and performance of small firms: a meta-analysis

The extant literature has reached no consensus on the correlation of board size and performance in small firms. We applied a HOMA meta-analytic procedure based on 29 empirical articles, representing a maximum of 151 effect sizes and total of 279194 firm-year observations. Contrary to the literature for large corporations, we find a positive correlation between board size and firm performance. To count for methodological and multi-measure heterogeneity, we applied a Feasible Generalised Least Squares (FGLS) estimator in the Meta-analytic regression. Regression results show that four publication-related mediating factors, eg. published or not, cross-sectional or panel data, and survey or secondary data. Such findings can be used for the estimation of effect size between board size and performance in future research. --26th ANZAM conference held: 5 - 7 December, 2012, at Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre