This study investigates the relationship between directors’ foreign experience and corporate environmental disclosure in Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2017. The research shows that directors with foreign experience have a positive and significant impact on corporate environmental disclosure. This effect is more pronounced in nonstate-owned enterprises, where directors have greater influence over managerial decisions. Additionally, the study suggests that in industries with high energy consumption, high pollution, or overcapacity, the positive effect can be further enhanced by having at least three directors with foreign experience or foreign experience members in the audit committee. The impact of experiential diversity on environmental disclosure is greater than that of board gender and independence diversity. The findings suggest that policymakers and firms prioritize the recruitment of directors with diverse experiences to improve their environmental disclosure practices.

In this paper, we investigate the agency costs of government ownership and their impact on corporate governance and firm value. China is used as a laboratory because of the prevalent state shareholdings in exchange-listed firms. In this context, we specifically consider the trade-offs involved in the voluntary formation of an audit committee when the controlling shareholder is the state. The decision to improve corporate governance (in this case, introduce an audit committee) is shown to be value relevant and a function of existing agency relationships and non-trivial implementation costs. Our findings are robust to the level of pyramid groups, the ownership-control wedge, and financial leverage. The research adds to the debate regarding the effect of government shareholdings on corporate culture and performance - a topic that has taken on renewed importance in recent times.