The stable operation of banks is vital to the healthy operation of each
country's financial and economic systems. If commercial banks are facing a
crisis, they will inevitably cause strong damage to the financial and economic
systems. The financial cr...
The stable operation of banks is vital to the healthy operation of each
country's financial and economic systems. If commercial banks are facing a
crisis, they will inevitably cause strong damage to the financial and economic
systems. The financial crisis that occurred in 2008 is an example. The excessive
risk of commercial banks in the United States is widely believed to be the trigger
for the crisis. In recent years, the intensification of global financial market
volatility, the expansion of China's financial openness, and the strengthening of
regulatory supervision have put forward higher requirements for risk
management of commercial banks in China.
The board of directors is the core and key human capital element of the bank's
internal governance and risk management. As the core of bank governance, the
bank's board of directors is the final decision maker of bank risk decisionmaking,
so their decision-making behaviour determines the bank's risk-taking
level. However, board members are not always rational and their decisionmaking
behaviours are influenced by psychological characteristics such as
cognition, risk appetite, and overconfidence, which are closely related to the
background characteristics of board members. Therefore, the background
characteristics of board members, including age, education level, social capital
characteristics and related heterogeneity characteristics, affect the bank's risktaking
through influencing their decision-making behaviour. However, current
research on bank risk taking is less concerned with this aspect.
The appointment and selection of board members of commercial banks in
China and Korea are different due to country differences. Therefore, the
background characteristics of the board members in two countries may reflect
different cognitions, values and risk preferences. The purpose of this paper is to
investigate the influence of the background characteristics of board members on
the risk-taking of commercial banks in different national conditions by selecting
commercial banks in China and Korea as research samples.
Based on the upper echelon theory, information decision theory, social
identity theory and risk preference theory, this study selected the data of 43
commercial banks in China and Korea from 2011 to 2018 as the research
samplesand conducted empirical study on the impact of the basic background
characteristics and the background characteristic heterogeneity of board
members on risk-taking of commercial banks in China and Korea.
Specifically, this study used the average age, the average education degree,
political capital, financial capital and non-financial capital of the board
members as indicators of the basic background characteristics, selected age
heterogeneity, education degree heterogeneity, professional background
heterogeneity and industry background heterogeneity as indicators of board
members' background characteristic heterogeneity, used the non-performing
loan ratio as an indicator to measure the risk-taking level of commercial banks,
multiple regression analysis, and conducted multiple regression analysis using
Eviews10.0 software. The empirical results show that:
(1) Both the average age and age heterogeneity of the board of directors, are
significantly negatively correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks in
China and Korea.
(2) In Korea, the education degree of the board of directors is significantly
positively correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks. While in China
this impact is not significant. In addition, the education degree heterogeneity is
significantly negatively correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks in
Chinabut this impact is not significant in Korea.
(3) The political capital of the board of directors is significantly negatively
correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks in China, while in Korea
this relationship is positively related.
(4) The financial capital of board members is significantly negatively
correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks in China, and this
relationship has also been verified in Korean city commercial banks.
(5) In Korea, the non-financial capital of board members is significantly
negatively correlated with the risk taking of national commercial banks, and this
negative relationship has also been verified in city commercial banks in China.
(6) The influence of the professional background heterogeneity of the board
of directors on the risk taking of commercial banks is not significant both in
China and Korea.
(7) The industry background heterogeneity of board members is significantly
negatively correlated with the risk taking of commercial banks in both China
and Korea.
This study constructed the analysis framework of commercial banks' risk
taking from the perspective of the background characteristics of the board of
directors, which provided a new research perspective for bank risk-taking
research. The results of this study are of great reference value for the rational
construction of the boards of directors of commercial banks and the
improvement of the bank risk control level in China and Korea.