Roles of academic directors on US Fortune 500 boards

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the prevalence of directors of US Fortune 500 firms who come from an academic background, and possible unique reasons for their appointment.Design/methodology/approach – Based on extant theory of the resource‐dependence roles of non‐management directors, this study proposes and tests three hypotheses concerning distinctive reasons firms may appoint an academic to their boards. Academic directors may serve unique roles in increasing board demographic diversity, increasing firm intellectual capital, and providing links to local geographic constituents. Using year 2002 data from the US Fortune 500 firms, this study presents descriptive statistics and uses t‐tests and χ2 tests to examine hypotheses.Findings – Firms having academics on their boards have greater board demographic diversity than firms without an academic director. Firms with academic directors have the same average emphasis on knowledge‐based earnings as other firms. Academics associated with US top‐ranked un...