BOARD COMPOSITION IN FAMILY BUSINESS AND PERFORMANCE IN GHANA: ROLE OF CEO DUALITY AND TYPE OF DIRECTORS

Over decades now, studies on board compositions have been centered on well-structured market and institutions to the disadvantage of small and medium firms who are also drivers of growth. This paper therefore seeks to examine how non-listed private family owned firms’ performance are affected by certain board structural characteristics. Using hierarchical regression analysis with 319 firms in Ghana, on one hand the result reveals that a higher proportion of non-executive directors impacted negatively on the positive effect of CEO duality. On the other hand, we could not adduce any evidence to suggest that family firms’ board of directors’ diversity have influence on the impact of non-executive director’s effect on performance. We therefore proposed that growing non-listed family firms should lessen the use of non-executive directors when the CEO plays dual role in the firm. The study therefore provides empirical evidence that composition of board of privately owned family firms affect performance and further gives insight and credence to the need to influence the application of good corporate governance in such businesses and in a faction different from what has been suggested in general literature of board