Bespoke measurement: the evidence, the method, and the framework question

Working memo, 2026-08-31. All rows are verbatim from the v10 coded corpus (1,969 main-specification governance measures across 125 papers).

Definitions

Terms used throughout, each with exactly one meaning:

Form: the triple (level, resolution, named_procedure). All three are closed-vocabulary fields already coded on every measure. Two measures have the same form if and only if all three values match exactly. No text is read and no similarity judgment is involved.
- level: the entity the variable is an attribute of, the smallest one that completes "this variable is an attribute of ___": director, board, committee, CEO, chair, firm, and so on.
- resolution: what kind of number the construction produces, judged before any monotone transformation (a logged count is still a count): binary, categorical, ordinal, count, share (a part-of-whole ratio), or continuous.
- named_procedure: the named statistical machinery beyond plain arithmetic, if any: none (levels, tallies, means, shares), concentration index (Blau, Herfindahl), spread statistic, pairwise comparison, graph position (centrality), faultline algorithm, latent weighting (factor/PCA), or model-derived.
Sub-construct: the content a measure claims, refined below the coded construct. Financial expertise and technology expertise are different sub-constructs. Measuring different sub-constructs is legitimate specialization, not the bespoke problem.
Quantity: the target a measure aims at, given by two coordinates: the entity whose attribute it is (director, CEO, chair, board, firm, industry, country) and the aspect of that entity the number is about, one of:
- individual status: an attribute of one person (this director is a woman).
- group composition: the prevalence of an attribute among a group's members: shares, counts, any-member indicators, majority or critical-mass indicators.
- group heterogeneity: the mixture across three or more categories of an attribute. For a binary attribute, a diversity index such as the Blau index is a deterministic function of the share and is classified as group composition; group heterogeneity is reserved for multi-category attributes.
- relational: ties, similarity, or comparisons defined against specific other actors.
- context attribute: a property of an environment rather than of persons or member groups (a country quota law, an industry exposure).
Director gender and board gender composition are different quantities of the same construct. Measuring different quantities is legitimate specialization, not the bespoke problem.
Definition: within a sub-construct and quantity, the raw facts that identify the attribute: what is counted, over whom, with what classifier, against what denominator, over what window. Three studies of financial expertise that use education, a CFO title, and industry tenure are three definitions of one sub-construct. That is the bespoke problem.
Raw count: the number of distinct forms (or distinct definitions, or distinct quantities) observed in the corpus for a construct. Each distinct value contributes one to the raw count, whether it is used by one measure or by fifty.
Effective number: a raw count can be large solely because many variables are defined in a unique way a single time in the corpus. To show whether a large raw count reflects such singleton usage or disagreement across many papers, we also report the effective number: the inverse Simpson index 1 / Σ p_i², where p_i is the share of measures using category i. The effective number equals the raw count when usage is spread evenly and approaches one as usage concentrates in a single category.

The full hierarchy is construct → sub-construct → quantity → definition → form. Apparent measurement heterogeneity within a construct therefore decomposes into three components with different interpretations: variety of quantities (researchers ask different questions about the same construct; legitimate), dispersion of definitions within a quantity (the bespoke problem proper), and dispersion of forms within a quantity and definition (residual inconsistency in how one definition is rendered as a number).

One measure, classified at every layer

The measure PCTFINEXP (van_peteghem_et_al_2018), coded verbatim as: Number of board members qualifying as financial experts under SOX divided by total board members.

Layer	Value for this measure	What the layer records
Construct	expertise	the coded `content` field: the broad attribute family the paper invokes
Sub-construct	financial/accounting expertise	the content the measure claims, refined: financial expertise, not technology or legal expertise
Quantity	board composition of experts	the target: whose attribute (the board) and which aspect (the prevalence of the attribute among its members)
Definition	Firm-designated (SOX/audit-committee) financial expert	the facts that identify the attribute: the SOX financial-expert designation, rather than a CPA credential, a CFO career, or a vendor flag
Form	board · share · none	the number produced: a board-level share, built with no named procedure

Why form alone is a lower bound

Counting distinct forms within a construct requires no judgment and is computable now. It is a strict lower bound on the number of distinct operationalizations, because it treats everything inside one form cell as identical, however different the underlying definitions are. The following four measures, all from the analytic sample, share the single form director | binary | none and are therefore counted as a single form by the lower bound. They are four distinct definitions of financial expertise:

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization
gow_et_al_2018	Financial Expert	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the reporting firm classifies the director as a financial expert, and 0 otherwise.
donelson_et_al_2025	CPA	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is a certified public accountant or equivalent, and zero otherwise.
chen_et_al_2020	Director with finance experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if before appointment the director held a CFO or treasurer title or worked in banking, finance, or investment firms, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Finance experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports that the director has finance experience.

The distinction also runs the other way. These two measures have different forms and would count as two under the lower bound, yet they share one quantity (board independence composition) and one definition (directors classified as independent, over board size), differing only in whether a threshold is applied:

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization
adams_et_al_2018	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by board size.
huang_hilary_2018	Independent Board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a majority of board directors are classified as independent.

Form and definition are therefore separate axes. Counting definitions requires reading the operationalization text and making judgment calls; the Coding pilot section describes how those judgments are made.

Dispersion evidence

The lower bound across constructs: raw and effective counts

Construct	Measures	Papers	Raw # of forms	Effective # of forms	Modal form %	Modal form
networks	239	47	40	14.4	14%	firm · binary
gender	161	58	28	10.6	17%	director · binary
expertise	241	65	32	8.4	26%	director · binary
experience/tenure	154	80	16	7.5	19%	ceo · continuous
age	134	74	24	7.1	25%	director · continuous
turnover	180	64	23	6.9	26%	director · binary
independence	111	73	11	2.8	58%	board · share
ceo duality	57	55	5	1.2	89%	ceo · binary
board size etc.	107	76	8	1.6	78%	board · count

Constructs standardized externally, by regulation or data vendors (independence, CEO duality, board size), are concentrated in one or two forms. The human- and social-capital constructs are dispersed. Every number in the table understates the problem, because the form counts are blind to definition variation.

Construct-level counts overstate a different thing: they pool distinct quantities. Gender's effective 10.6 forms does not mean the field measures one thing 10.6 ways; it means the field studies several gender quantities (director gender, board gender composition, gender-based ties, country-level gender institutions), each with its own natural forms. The decomposition below separates the two readings for the piloted constructs. Read each row within one quantity: the definition columns measure the bespoke problem proper, and the form columns measure residual inconsistency in rendering.

Decomposition by quantity (gender and expertise pilots)

Click any quantity to expand its full record listing: every measure in that quantity, grouped by draft definition, with the verbatim operationalization text. The construct-wide listings for all four constructs remain below.

Gender

Quantity

Measures

Papers

Raw # of definitions

Effective # of definitions

Raw # of forms

Effective # of forms

board gender composition

1.1

3.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: directors classified female in board data source (47 measures)
chen_et_al_2016	at least one female director	board \| binary \| none	Binary indicator equal to one when at least one female director was present on the board in a given firm-year.
chen_et_al_2020	Female board (indicator)	board \| binary \| none	One if the firm has a female outside director on the board, and zero otherwise.
gormley_et_al_2023	Zero_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had no female board members at end-fiscal-2016.	inverted polarity
gormley_et_al_2023	LessTwo_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had fewer than two female board members at the end of fiscal year 2016.	inverted polarity
gormley_et_al_2023	At least one female director	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the firm having at least one female director.
gormley_et_al_2023	One_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had one female board member at end-fiscal-2016.
guiso_et_al_2026	Any F. BM	board \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the firm-year board has at least one female member and zero otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	Any F exec	board \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if any executive board member is female.
hu_et_al_2025	All-men board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm has no woman director and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity
kang_et_al_2022	Board Gender Dispersion (indicator)	board \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if at least one outside director on the board is female and 0 otherwise.
solal_snellman_2019	Has female director	board \| binary \| none	Treatment indicator equal to 1 for firms with at least one female director and 0 for firms with all-male boards.
huang_hilary_2018	Gender Diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Board-level Blau index, one minus the sum of squared director-category shares, using female and male categories.	binary-attribute Blau index is a deterministic function of the female share; composition per rule
jung_et_al_2023	Gender diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Reverse-coded Herfindahl concentration index based on the numbers of female and nonfemale directors relative to total board size; higher values indicate a more gender-diverse board.	reverse-coded Herfindahl over two gender categories; composition per rule
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in gender diversity, with each board’s diversity measured by Blau’s index.	change in gender-only Blau index; composition per rule
gormley_et_al_2023	Change in number of females	board \| continuous \| none	Net increase in the number of female directors on the board relative to the previous fiscal year.
connelly_et_al_2021	Female directors	board \| count \| none	Number of female directors on the board; the variable is logged.
greene_et_al_2026	Gap	board \| count \| none	Difference between the number of female directors needed for the firm to comply with SB 826 by the end of 2021 and the number of female directors on its board before SB 826 was signed.	female-director count expressed as distance to SB 826 quota compliance; still board composition
guiso_et_al_2026	Male board members	board \| count \| none	Number of men serving on the focal firm's board; regression models use the year-on-year change in this count.	inverted polarity
guiso_et_al_2026	Female board members	board \| count \| none	Number of women serving on the focal firm's board; regression models use the year-on-year change in this count.
pan_et_al_2025	Number of female directors	board \| count \| none	Total number of women serving on the board, reduced by one when the CEO is a woman.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board gender diversity	board \| count \| none	Number of female directors on the board.
solal_snellman_2019	No. of female directors	board \| count \| none	Number of female board members sitting at the date of the firm’s annual meeting in the calendar year.
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of male directors	board \| share \| none	The proportion of board directors who are male.	inverted polarity
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board gender diversity	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by board size, measured in the survey year.
bernile_et_al_2018	Female board member ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
chen_et_al_2016	Female board representation	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors in a given firm-year divided by total board size.
chen_et_al_2016	Proportion of female executives	board \| share \| none	Proportion of female directors on the focal board who concurrently occupied executive positions in other S&P firms.	share of female directors holding executive roles elsewhere; numerator adds a non-gender condition, kept as board gender composition with caveat
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Director Ratio (LN)	board \| share \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the proportion of female directors on the board: ln(1 + female director ratio).
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Director Ratio	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors on the firm's board who are female.
delis_et_al_2017	Gender	board \| share \| none	Percentage of male directors on the board.	inverted polarity
donelson_et_al_2025	PctFemale	board \| share \| none	Number of firm directors identified as female by BoardEx, divided by total directors.
friedman_2020	FEMDIR	board \| share \| none	Fraction of board seats at firm j held by women, based on the most recent annual meeting preceding the fund reporting date.
gormley_et_al_2023	Female director share	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by total board size.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of female directors that depart	board \| share \| none	Female directors present at prior fiscal year-end but absent at focal fiscal year-end, divided by all female directors present at prior fiscal year-end.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of directors that are newly hired females	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board at fiscal year-end who were absent at the prior fiscal year-end, divided by total directors at focal fiscal year-end.
guiso_et_al_2026	Share F. BM	board \| share \| none	Number of female board members divided by total board members, expressed in percentage points; analyses also use its year-on-year first difference and leads of one to three years.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female director ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
hu_et_al_2025	% women directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors on the board who are women.
kang_kang_2024	Board female ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
luo_et_al_2021	Female directors	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by total directors.
mitra_et_al_2021	Female board representation	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by the number of all directors on the board in the firm-year.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of the non-CEO directors on the board who are female.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	% male directors	board \| share \| none	Number of male directors divided by total director count.	inverted polarity
van_peteghem_et_al_2018	PCTGENDER	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by total board members.
wu_2025	Female	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
you_et_al_2023	Proportion of female directors	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
hu_et_al_2025	Underrep. of women dir.	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s number of women directors is below the industry median and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded firm; board female count compared with industry median; below-median coding is inverted polarity
Definition: director classified female or racial minority (2 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive minority chairs	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when a woman or director from an underrepresented racial group holds any compensation-, audit-, or nomination-committee chair position on the board.	gender is one of two attributes (female or racial minority); any-dummy over key-committee chairs
naumovska_et_al_2020	No. of minority directors at nonfraudulent firm	board \| count \| none	Number of female and ethnic minority directors serving on the focal nonfraudulent firm’s board.	gender is one of two attributes (count of female plus ethnic-minority directors)

director gender

1.3

1.1

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: director classified female in board data source (23 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is female and zero otherwise.
benton_2021	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a female director.
busenbark_et_al_2023	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director is female and 0 otherwise.
cai_et_al_2021	Appointee is female (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the appointee is female.
donelson_et_al_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if BoardEx identifies the director as female, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if ISS classifies the director as female.
gormley_et_al_2023	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the board member is female.
gow_et_al_2018	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the director is female and 0 otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	Female=1 + in Target=1	director \| binary \| none	Joint indicator equal to one if a newly appointed director is female and currently sits on a target-company board.	joint indicator: female AND sits on quota-target board; gender content is individual status, tie flagged
guiso_et_al_2026	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if individual j is female and zero otherwise.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that a director is female.
jiang_et_al_2016	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is female.
jiang_et_al_2021	Candidate gender	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female candidate and 0 for a male candidate.
kang_et_al_2022	Director Gender Diversity (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if an outside director is female and 0 otherwise.
kang_et_al_2022	Female (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is female and 0 otherwise.
krause_et_al_2017	Female Director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for female directors and 0 for male directors.
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the independent-director nominee or departing independent director is female.
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Female	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that a director was female, as reported in RiskMetrics.
mitra_et_al_2021	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director candidate up for election is female and zero if the candidate is male.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator identifying female directors; used separately from ethnic-minority status in supplementary tests and also forms one trigger condition of Minority director.
von_meyerinck_et_al_2025	Female (d)	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is female, and zero otherwise.
zhu_chen_2014	Gender	director \| binary \| none	Gender of the new director; coding categories are not stated.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female	other \| binary \| none	Respondent-gender grouping identifying female respondents; exact indicator coding is not stated.	level coded 'other' (survey respondent); treated as individual gender status of respondent, entity uncertain
Definition: gender self-reported in survey (1 measure)
adams_licht_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy for a female director, based on the respondent’s indicated gender in the survey and the corresponding gender variable in Boardex benchmarking.	identified by survey self-report (with BoardEx benchmarking), split from vendor-classified group
Definition: gender inferred from names and photographs (1 measure)
frankort_et_al_2026	Woman director	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the director is a woman and 0 otherwise, coded using first names and photographs in firms’ annual reports.	identified from first names and photographs, split from vendor-classified group
Definition: director classified female or racial minority (1 measure)
naumovska_et_al_2020	Minority director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female director or a director categorized as African American, Arab, Asian, or Hispanic, and 0 for a White male director.	gender is one of two attributes (female or ethnic-minority director)

CEO gender

1.1

1.3

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: CEO classified female in executive data (21 measures)
he_whited_2026	Conditional choice probabilities	board \| continuous \| model_derived	Model-implied probability of choosing a female CEO conditional on the observed state, generated from the dynamic-model solution and simulated histories initialized at each firm's observed initial state; simulations are repeated 100 times.	level coded board; target is the gender of the chosen CEO (model-implied probability), so assigned to CEO individual status
he_whited_2026	Conditional choice probabilities	board \| share \| none	Observed frequency with which boards choose a female CEO among firms at a given model state, aggregated over CEO gender, firm-size, and candidate-pool-composition groups.	level coded board; observed frequency of choosing a female CEO, assigned to CEO individual status like its model counterpart
brenner_2015	Gender	ceo \| binary \| none	CEO gender, compared as male versus female.
chen_et_al_2016	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the CEO was female.
field_et_al_2020	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator identifying a female CEO; exact source is not stated.
garg_et_al_2018	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female CEO and 0 otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	F CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the firm's CEO is female.
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy variable coded 1 for a female CEO and 0 for a male CEO.
harrison_et_al_2024	CEO is female	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the inventor CEO is female.
he_whited_2026	Gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm's CEO is female and zero otherwise; in the structural model, the CEO gender decision equals one when the appointed CEO is female.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator for a female chief executive officer.
hu_et_al_2025	Woman CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm has a woman CEO and zero otherwise.
kraft_et_al_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	CEO gender; the supplied text does not state which gender is coded one, but the descriptive statistics establish a binary measure.
lel_2024	Female	ceo \| binary \| none	Gender of the CEO or director; reported statistics establish a binary variable, but the appendix does not explicitly state which value denotes female.	applies to CEO or director; coding polarity not stated in source
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 0 for a male CEO and 1 for a female CEO.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the appointed CEO is female and 0 if the appointed CEO is male.
pan_et_al_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Dichotomous indicator equal to one if the CEO is a woman.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female CEO and 0 for a male CEO.
solal_snellman_2019	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 if the CEO is a woman and 0 otherwise.
you_et_al_2023	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the CEO is female; exact coding language is not provided.
cumming_et_al_2015	Female General Manager	tmt \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm is led by a female general manager and 0 otherwise.	level coded tmt but the general manager is a single top executive (Chinese setting); assigned to CEO-equivalent individual status
Definition: CEO classified female or nonwhite (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive minority CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the CEO is female or nonwhite.	gender is one of two attributes (female or nonwhite CEO)

country gender regulation / environment

1.1

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: country female-director share used as exposure (1 measure)
friedman_2020	Local Female Director Fraction	country \| share \| none	Country-year average fraction of female directors on boards of firms located in the fund’s home country.	country female-director share used as an exposure/benchmark, hence context attribute
Definition: country announced board gender-diversity intervention (16 measures)
baik_et_al_2024	Strong Enforcement Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a strongly enforced mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; strong enforcement imposes significant costs such as dissolution, fines, or penalties on the firm or board.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention Resulting in Above-Median BGD Increase	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 after the firm-year country announces an intervention resulting in an above-median increase in board gender diversity and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−4	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for observations four or more years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement; the paper labels the endpoint t−4 while describing coverage of each of the five years before treatment.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; main tests turn treatment on at the announcement date of the earliest intervention in countries with multiple interventions.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−3	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for three years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention Resulting in Below-Median BGD Increase	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 after the firm-year country announces an intervention resulting in a below-median increase in board gender diversity and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Weak Enforcement Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a weakly enforced mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; weak enforcement includes no penalties, rewards for compliance, or restrictions on replacing incumbents.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−2	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for two years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+5	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for five or more years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for the board gender diversity intervention announcement year.
baik_et_al_2024	Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after the firm-year country announces a mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+1	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for one year after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+2	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for two years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Voluntary Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after the firm-year country announces a voluntary board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+3	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for three years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+4	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for four years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.

firm gender-diversity policy / environment

4.2

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: multi-attribute diversity of geographic director pool (3 measures)
bernile_et_al_2018	Diversity of local directors	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Board diversity index of all individuals serving as directors at any firm in the current year who reside within 150 miles of the focal firm’s headquarters.	gender one input among several in pool-diversity index; attribute of the local labor-pool environment
bernile_et_al_2018	Diversity of nonlocal directors w/in non-stop flight	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Weighted diversity, based on the board-diversity index, of potential directors residing more than 150 miles from headquarters in counties with at least one daily non-stop flight to headquarters; potential director-firm-year observations are weighted by average monthly non-stop flights between the county pair. Potential directors are directors or executives of other S&P 1500 firms in the same size quintile.	gender one input among several; flight-weighted accessible director pool
bernile_et_al_2018	Change in nonlocal potential director diversity due to changes in non-stop flight routes	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Three-year change in accessible nonlocal-potential-director diversity attributable to additions or deletions of non-stop flight routes connecting to headquarters.	gender one input among several; change induced by flight-route changes
Definition: female directors among interlocked firms' boards (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2016	Female director in the interlocking firms	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when firms interlocked with the focal board had any female directors.	female presence among interlocked firms' boards; treated as network-environment exposure of the focal firm
Definition: local geographic supply of female directors (1 measure)
mitra_et_al_2021	Female directors in geographic proximity	firm \| continuous \| none	Number of female directors serving on corporate boards within a 100-km (62.1-mile) radius of the focal firm's headquarters divided by the total number of public firms within that radius.	geographic supply of female directors around HQ; environment attribute, not the firm's own board
Definition: portfolio-weighted female-director share (1 measure)
friedman_2020	Female Director Fund Preference (FEMDIR_FP)	firm \| share \| none	Value-weighted average fraction of female directors across firms in the fund’s portfolio: each portfolio firm’s FEMDIR weighted by the fund’s dollar holdings and divided by total reported holdings.	fund-level portfolio-weighted average of investee boards' female shares; exposure/preference attribute
Definition: firm-disclosed board gender-diversity policy or target (4 measures)
hu_et_al_2025	Target_Post	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a firm discloses adoption of targets for women’s representation on the board in a year and zero if it discloses no adoption; also set to zero for preregulation treatment observations and EB U.S. firms.	level coded board but the fact is a firm disclosure of a policy; entity overridden to firm; content is the policy, not anyone's gender
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Diversity & opportunity targets	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the company has diversity and equal-opportunity targets or objectives, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Firm has diversity policy on gender or race	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the firm's proxy statement says the board considers race and/or gender when selecting director nominees; generic diversity language without explicit gender, race, or ethnicity does not qualify.
hu_et_al_2025	Consider_Post	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a firm discloses that women’s representation is considered in director identification and selection in a year and zero if it discloses no such consideration; also set to zero for preregulation treatment observations and EB U.S. firms.
Definition: KLD-rated diversity strengths score (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	Diversity strengths	firm \| count \| none	Total KLD strength score across diversity-dimension strength items, excluding the board-diversity strength item so that board diversity is not counted twice.	KLD diversity strengths; gender one input among several policy items; content is firm practice

multi-attribute board diversity including gender

1.7

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: multi-attribute diversity index including female share (Bernile-style) (5 measures)
bernile_et_al_2018	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Change in the board-diversity index over a three-year window, measured three years ahead to allow board composition to adjust to flight-route changes.	gender (female share) is one input among six attributes; heterogeneity per what the index does
bernile_et_al_2018	Board executives diversity index	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Diversity index for board members who are also executives of the same firm; the supplied text does not state its exact arithmetic construction.	multi-attribute diversity index restricted to executive directors; construction not fully stated
bernile_et_al_2018	Board diversity index	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Main text: sum of standardized female-director share, standard deviation of director age, mean other-board seats, and sign-reversed Herfindahl indexes for ethnicity, Bachelor’s institution, and financial expertise, with equal weights.	gender is one input among six attributes
bernile_et_al_2018	Demographic diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Index calculated from percent female, standard deviation of age, and sign-reversed HHI ethnicity, normalized by its sample mean and standard deviation.	three-attribute subset (gender, age, ethnicity) of the same paper's index; kept with Bernile-style group
bernile_et_al_2018	Non-executive diversity index	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, the difference between the Board diversity index and the Board executives diversity index.	arithmetic difference of two multi-attribute indices; gender one input among six
Definition: gender plus race/ethnicity diversity composite (2 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Composite board-level measure obtained by standardizing Gender diversity and Racial diversity as z-scores and adding the two standardized scores.	gender is one of two attributes (gender + race z-scores summed)
naumovska_et_al_2020	Board diversity at fraudulent firm	board \| continuous \| none	Gender-diversity and ethnic-diversity Blau indices for the fraudulent firm’s board, excluding the focal director, each divided by its respective median and then summed.	gender is one of two attributes (gender + ethnicity Blau indices summed)

appointee gender

1.5

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: appointee classified female in board data (4 measures)
hu_et_al_2025	Man committee chair, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a man among its new directors as chair of a governance, audit, compensation, or nominating committee, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender; male appointment is inverted polarity
hu_et_al_2025	Woman committee chair, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a woman among its new directors as chair of a governance, audit, compensation, or nominating committee, and zero otherwise.	level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender
hu_et_al_2025	Woman board chair/lead director, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a woman among its new directors as board chair or lead independent director, and zero otherwise.	level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender
hu_et_al_2025	Man board chair/lead director, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a man among its new directors as board chair or lead independent director, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender; male appointment is inverted polarity
Definition: experimentally manipulated appointee gender (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	female board appointments	event \| binary \| none	Experimental manipulation in which a firm was described as appointing a female rather than a male director; further construction details are in the unavailable online appendix.	experimental vignette manipulates appointee gender; identifying fact is the manipulation, not a data classification

director gender similarity to specific others

4.0

1.6

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: candidate and incumbent gender mismatch (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Gender difference between incumbent and candidate	director \| binary \| none	Dichotomous indicator that the incumbent director and potential board candidate do not have the same gender category.
Definition: director shares gender with incoming CEO (1 measure)
busenbark_et_al_2023	Gender alignment	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director and incoming CEO share a gender and 0 otherwise.
Definition: female candidate facing all-male incumbent board (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Female candidate for an all-male board (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if a candidate is female while every incumbent director is male.	relational uniqueness: candidate gender defined against all-male incumbent board
Definition: multi-attribute difference from CEO including gender (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s demographic difference from CEO	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Sum of standard scores for five CEO–director difference indicators: gender, ethnicity, age, elite education, and functional background. Age difference equals one when ages differ by more than one sample standard deviation; each other indicator equals one when the director and CEO differ on that dimension.	gender is one of five difference indicators summed

industry gender environment

2.7

1.6

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: female share among industry directors (2 measures)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Industry female directors	industry \| share \| none	Average percentage of females on boards within each firm's industry.
solal_snellman_2019	Industry diversity (%)	industry \| share \| none	Percentage of all directors in the focal firm’s two-digit-code industry who are female in the year, excluding directors of the focal firm.
Definition: female share among industry employees (1 measure)
cumming_et_al_2015	Female-dominated Industry	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm's industry class has more than 50% female employees and 0 otherwise, based on average Australian industry employment shares over 2004–2012 and a mapping of Australian sectors to Chinese sectors.	level coded firm but the fact is the industry's female employment share; entity overridden to industry
Definition: female share among industry executives (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Industry female executives	industry \| share \| none	Average percentage of female executives within each firm's industry.

firm-level gender composition

1.6

2.7

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: directors classified female in board data source (3 measures)
gormley_et_al_2023	NoFemaleLeader_2016	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator that at end-fiscal-2016 the firm had neither a female CEO nor a female director on the nominating, audit, or compensation committee.	inverted polarity
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	firm \| count \| none	Count of female newly recruited independent directors in a firm-year.
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year aggregation of female indicators for voluntarily departing independent directors.
Definition: CEO candidate pool members classified by gender (1 measure)
he_whited_2026	% male cand.	firm \| share \| none	Share of male candidates in a CEO candidate pool comprising the firm's past and current executives and board members plus current executives of peer firms in the same three-digit SIC industry.	inverted polarity; male share of CEO candidate pool; inverted polarity; pool spans own and peer-firm executives

TMT gender composition

1.0

1.8

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: TMT members classified female (3 measures)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female top managers	tmt \| count \| none	Number of female firm officers above the rank of vice president, including positions such as CEO, chief financial officer, and senior vice president.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	TMT gender diversity	tmt \| count \| none	Number of female top management team members, operationalized in the same way as board gender diversity.	count of female TMT members, per source operationalized like the board count
kang_kang_2024	TMT female ratio	tmt \| share \| none	Number of female executives divided by top-management-team size.

board chair gender

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)
Definition: board chair classified female (2 measures)
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Chairperson	chair \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm is led by a female chairperson and 0 otherwise.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female chair	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the board chair is female and 0 otherwise.

origin-country director gender composition

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: origin-country foreign directors classified female (2 measures)
barrios_et_al_2022	Female foreign directors	country \| count \| none	Number of foreign female directors from the origin country in period t.	dyadic firm-by-origin-country grain; count of foreign female directors, kept at coded country level
barrios_et_al_2022	Male foreign directors	country \| count \| none	Number of foreign male directors from the origin country in period t.	inverted polarity; male count is the inverted-polarity variant of the female count

board gender similarity to CEO

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: hiring directors sharing CEO gender category (1 measure)
zorn_et_al_2020	CEO-hiring director gender similarity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau heterogeneity-based measure using the proportion of hiring directors who share the CEO's gender category; the converted formula is incomplete or malformed.	relational: Blau-based share of hiring directors matching CEO gender; formula reported as malformed in source

CEO gender similarity to other CEOs

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: multi-attribute similarity to tied CEOs including gender (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	Focal CEO’s demographic similarity to other CEOs	ceo \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For gender, ethnicity, age, elite education, and functional background, demographic similarity was measured as the squared percentage of other CEOs tied to a new director who were similar to the focal CEO; the overall measure is the sum of standard scores of the five dimension-specific measures.	gender is one of five attributes in a summed similarity index

committee gender composition

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: female director present on nominating committee (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female on nominating committee	committee \| binary \| none	Coded 1 if the board's sole female director served on the firm's nominating committee and 0 if she did not.

experimental diversity-salience context

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: experimental diversity-salience framing manipulation (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	diversity was made salient	event \| binary \| none	Experimental framing manipulation that included versus excluded explicit references to diversity in the board-appointment description.	content is diversity salience of the vignette, not anyone's gender; distinct sub-construct

appointee cohort gender composition

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: newly appointed directors classified female (1 measure)
gormley_et_al_2023	Female share of newly appointed directors	period \| share \| none	Number of newly appointed directors who are women in a month divided by all directors newly appointed in that month.	level coded period; monthly cohort of newly appointed directors, entity overridden to appointee cohort

Expertise

Quantity

Measures

Papers

Raw # of definitions

Effective # of definitions

Raw # of forms

Effective # of forms

board composition of experts

21.3

3.1

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (8 measures)
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board financial expertise	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if at least one director on the board is a financial expert, defined as having accounting- or finance-related education or expertise, and zero otherwise.
huang_et_al_2025	Financial Experts on Intermediary Boards	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the presence of BoardEx-classified financial experts on any intermediary firm's board.	Population is intermediary firms' boards, not the focal board.; Any-member dummy; population is intermediary firms' boards, not the focal board.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors categorized from their primary employment background as having finance-sector expertise.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors not on the CDC	board \| count \| none	Number of board directors classified as possessing finance skills who did not serve on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors serving on the board in a year whose proxy-statement biography or nomination rationale contained a predefined finance-skill keyword or phrase.	Proxy-bio keyword classifier treated as finance-background biography classifier.
chen_et_al_2020	Finance experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with CFO or treasurer titles or work in banking, finance, or investment firms before the current directorship divided by all directors.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with finance expertise divided by total board size.
sun_et_al_2016	Board Acc/Fin Ratio	board \| share \| none	Percentage of independent directors who have accounting and financial expertise.	Underlying acc/fin classifier unspecified; placed in broad career-background group.
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (4 measures)
chychyla_et_al_2019	HighBoardRatioAcc	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when BoardRatioAcc is in the third tercile.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Join Acc	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if an accounting expert joined the board during the year, and 0 otherwise.	Appointment flow of the stock accounting-expert classifier; grouped with it.; Appointment-flow dummy (an expert joined this year); treated as composition of board membership.
chychyla_et_al_2019	BoardNumAcc	board \| count \| none	Number of accounting experts on the board. An expert has a CPA or similar certification or has worked as an auditor, tax professional, financial controller, treasurer, or CFO.
chychyla_et_al_2019	BoardRatioAcc	board \| share \| none	BoardNumAcc divided by BoardSize.
Definition: Firm-designated (SOX/audit-committee) financial expert (2 measures)
armstrong_et_al_2015	Log NumFinExp	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of financial experts designated on the board of directors in the year preceding the fiscal year.
van_peteghem_et_al_2018	PCTFINEXP	board \| share \| none	Number of board members qualifying as financial experts under SOX divided by total board members.
Definition: Employment or board seat at a financial institution (1 measure)
huang_et_al_2025	Bankers on Intermediary Boards	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the presence of bankers on any intermediary firm's board; bankers are directors who also serve on a commercial bank board identified with the Schwert lender link table.	Banker defined by commercial-bank board seat, on intermediary boards.; Any-member dummy on intermediary boards.
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (5 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	CEO-directors	board \| count \| none	Number of focal-board directors who are CEOs of another company, entered in regressions as its natural logarithm.
krause_et_al_2017	Outside Directors Who Are Current CEOs	board \| count \| none	Count of outside board members whose current title is CEO at another for-profit firm.
zhu_chen_2014	Number of CEO-directors appointed by the focal firm in the previous three years	board \| count \| none	Count of CEO-directors appointed to the focal firm’s board during the preceding three years.	Three-year appointment flow of the current-CEO-director classifier.
baer_et_al_2023	% Current CEO Directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who currently serve as CEO of a public firm.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	% CEO directors	board \| share \| none	Number of directors who are current CEOs divided by total directors.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	% Former CEO Directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who formerly served as CEO of a public firm.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of directors with CEO experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with prior CEO experience divided by total directors on the board.
you_et_al_2023	Proportion of directors with CEO experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with CEO experience at other firms divided by the total number of directors.
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (1 measure)
huang_hilary_2018	% Outside Executives	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors who work as executives.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Executive experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with specified executive experience before the current directorship divided by all directors.
Definition: Latent factor of board skill indicators (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Factor 1	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	First unrotated factor extracted by the iterated principal factor method from the 18 varying board-level skill indicators.	Latent factor over 18 board-level any-member skill dummies: a composite of composition indicators, not heterogeneity.
adams_et_al_2018	Factor 1	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	First unrotated factor extracted by maximum-likelihood factor analysis from the 18 varying board-level skill indicators; Finance and accounting and Company business are excluded because they have no variation.	Latent factor over 18 board-level any-member skill dummies: a composite of composition indicators, not heterogeneity.
Definition: Dispersion across skill or professional-background categories (1 measure)
adams_et_al_2018	Inside-outside Blau score	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau concentration index formed after combining all insider skills into one insider group and all outsider skills into one outsider group, treating the two groups as individuals in the Blau formula.	Insider/outsider regrouping variant of the skill-category Blau.; Blau over two categories (insider/outsider) is a deterministic function of the insider share; composition per the binary rule.
Definition: Concentration of financial-expertise status (1 measure)
bernile_et_al_2018	HHI financial expert	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl index formed from the board shares classified as having or not having financial expertise.	HHI over a binary attribute (financial expert or not) is a function of the share; composition per the binary rule.
Definition: Factor score of tenure and directorship human-capital proxies (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2016	Average Board Human Capital	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For each board-year, the authors calculated the mean across all directors other than the chair for each of the six proxy measures and applied the chair-level factor-scoring coefficients to those means to produce a board human-capital score.	Factor-weighted mean of member human-capital proxies: a group aggregate of member attributes (composition).
Definition: Count of declining board-average career-breadth dimensions (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	Decrease in Board Skill	board \| count \| none	Sum of five indicators, each identifying a decrease from t-2 to t-1 in a board-member average for # Positions, CEO Experience, # Firms, # Industries, or Conglomerate Experience, where t is appointment year.	Sum of decline indicators in board-mean attributes; a change composite of member-average attributes (composition).
Definition: Career or biography experience in focal firm's industry (4 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors whose proxy biography indicates experience in the same three-digit SIC industry as the focal firm or another background clearly related to its line of business, including related nonprofit experience.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert/Total	board \| share \| none	Number of outside expert directors divided by total board size.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
oehmichen_et_al_2017	Industry expertise	board \| share \| none	Proportion of the focal board’s nonexecutive directors whose experience value is at least three, where experience values reflect the maximum consecutive SIC-digit match between the focal firm and positions held during the prior four years.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
schabus_2022	%DIR_P_IND_EXP	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors with experience from prior appointments as executives or directors in the same industry.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
Definition: Years of directorships at other focal-industry firms (3 measures)
donelson_et_al_2025	NonCILAvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which non-competitor-interlocked directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the number of non-competitor-interlocked directors.
donelson_et_al_2025	CILAvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which competitor-interlocked directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the number of competitor-interlocked directors.
donelson_et_al_2025	AvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which the firm's independent directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the total number of independent directors.
Definition: Drug-introduction market experience via board interlocks, depreciated window (2 measures)
diestre_et_al_2015	Directors’ experience from past interlocks	board \| continuous \| none	Experience directors obtained on other boards through interlocks that were no longer active in year t, calculated using the same market-specific drug-introduction, board aggregation, three-year-window, and depreciation procedure as current interlocking directors’ experience.
diestre_et_al_2015	Interlocking directors’ experience	board \| continuous \| none	For each focal-firm director and therapeutic market, the authors counted new drugs introduced in that market by interlocking firms on whose boards the director also served, summed experience across all directors on the focal board, and accumulated it over the most recent three-year window with a 40 percent depreciation factor.
Definition: Outside directors without focal-industry expertise (finance/law/other aggregate) (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Finance/Law/Other	board \| count \| none	Aggregate number of outside directors categorized as having finance, law, or other expertise rather than focal-industry expertise.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance/Law/Other	board \| share \| none	Aggregate number of outside directors with finance, law, or other expertise divided by total board size.
Definition: Prior senior banking career, on bank boards (1 measure)
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of banking experts	board \| share \| none	The proportion of directors at the start of year t whose biographies indicated banking experience before joining the board; such experience generally appeared only when the director had previously reached at least Executive Vice President rank in a bank.	Banking career on bank boards; paper claims focal-domain (industry) expertise, not financial expertise.
Definition: Outside industry experts over total-experts denominator (1 measure)
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert/Total expert	board \| share \| none	Number of outside expert directors divided by total experts, where total experts equal inside directors plus outside expert directors.	Denominator is total experts, not board size; kept as separate definition.
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (6 measures)
chen_et_al_2020	China-director domiciled in foreign countries	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with China experience who reside in foreign countries divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	Executive China-director	board \| share \| none	Number of inside directors with China experience divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director	board \| share \| none	Ratio of outside directors with China experience to all directors on the board. China experience requires prior work in China or service in specified leadership or management roles in a Chinese division of a domestic or foreign firm, before the first year of the focal directorship.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director with recent work experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors whose China experience was obtained from year −7 through year −1 relative to appointment year 0, divided by total directors.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director domiciled in the U.S.	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with China experience who reside in the U.S. divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director with early work experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors whose China experience was obtained before year −7 relative to appointment year 0, divided by total directors.
Definition: Chinese returnee directors' overseas study or work (5 measures)
luo_et_al_2021	Average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| continuous \| none	Average length abroad among returnee directors from high-donation countries for firms with such directors; coded zero for firms without such directors.
luo_et_al_2021	Square of average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| continuous \| none	Squared value of average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors	board \| share \| none	Number of the firm’s Chinese directors who studied or worked outside mainland China divided by total directors.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| share \| none	Number of Chinese returnee directors associated with foreign countries whose World Giving Index score is above the median of sample countries, divided by total board members. Multiple-country returnees are classified using their average country score.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors from low-donation countries	board \| share \| none	Number of Chinese returnee directors associated with foreign countries whose World Giving Index score is at or below the median of sample countries, divided by total board members.
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (2 measures)
chen_et_al_2020	Foreign experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors who studied abroad or worked in non-U.S. firms before the current directorship divided by all directors.
giannetti_et_al_2015	Foreign Experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with foreign work experience, foreign education, or both divided by total board size.
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (4 measures)
ghannam_et_al_2019	Join Law	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if a legal expert joined the board during the year, and 0 otherwise.	Appointment flow of the stock legal-expert classifier; grouped with it.; Appointment-flow dummy; treated as composition of board membership.
connelly_et_al_2021	Legal directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors with legal experience on the board.
denis_et_al_2015	Law	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors categorized from their primary employment background as having legal-sector expertise.
denis_et_al_2015	Law	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with legal expertise divided by total board size.
Definition: Entrepreneurial-skill keywords in proxy biography (2 measures)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors serving on the board in a year whose proxy-statement biography or nomination rationale contained a predefined entrepreneurial-skill keyword or phrase.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors not on the CDC	board \| count \| none	Number of board directors classified as possessing entrepreneurial skills who did not serve on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Board Members squared	board \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Board Members, the yearly percentage of board members who were board-certified physicians.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Board Members	board \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of the firm's board members who were identified as board-certified physicians through the AMA Physician Masterfile.
Definition: Years at other family companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fam Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other family companies in the sample.
Definition: Years at other lone-founder companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fdr Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other lone-founder companies in the sample.
Definition: Years at other regular public companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Pub Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other regular public companies in the sample.
Definition: Board service at acquiring firms, prior five years (4 measures)
masulis_zhang_2019	Acq (distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of distracted acquisition-experienced independent directors divided by the number of acquisition-experienced independent directors; experience uses the specified prior-five-year acquisition criterion.
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-acq (distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of distracted independent directors without the defined prior-five-year acquisition experience divided by the number of independent directors without that experience.	inverted polarity; Measures directors WITHOUT acquisition experience; inverted.
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-Acq (non-distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of non-acquisition-experienced directors who are independent and non-distracted divided by the number of directors without the defined prior-five-year acquisition experience.	inverted polarity; Measures directors WITHOUT acquisition experience; inverted.
masulis_zhang_2019	Acq (non-distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of acquisition-experienced directors who are independent and non-distracted divided by the number of acquisition-experienced directors. Acquisition experience means serving on the board of a public firm making at least one acquisition worth at least 1% of bidder market value in the prior five years.
Definition: Prior manufacturing work experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Manufacturing experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors who worked in manufacturing before the current directorship divided by all directors.
Definition: Residual 'other' expertise category (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Other	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors whose primary experience does not classify them into the unit-related, parent-related, law, or finance categories.
denis_et_al_2015	Other	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors in the other-expertise category divided by total board size.
Definition: Director interlock to a bankrupt firm post-filing (1 measure)
gopalan_et_al_2021	Interlocked Bankruptcy	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a firm sharing at least one director with another firm that files for bankruptcy, during years following that interlocked firm’s bankruptcy filing.	The attribute is a director interlock tie to a bankrupt firm, but the measure is an any-member dummy, so composition.
Definition: Real-estate ownership or executive background (1 measure)
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of real estate experts	board \| share \| none	The proportion of directors whose biographies indicated a background in the real-estate domain, such as ownership or top-executive experience in real-estate development or investment companies.
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
jiang_et_al_2021	Outgoing directors’ human capital	board \| continuous \| none	Human capital of directors leaving the declining firm; the paper does not state how multiple outgoing directors are aggregated or whether the candidate human-capital construction is reused.	Aggregation and human-capital construction unstated by the paper.; Aggregation unstated by the paper; treated as an aggregate of outgoing members' attributes.
hsu_et_al_2025	Frac industry experience	board \| share \| none	Fraction of directors on the board possessing industry experience.	Classifier and threshold for 'industry experience' not supplied.; The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
hsu_et_al_2025	Frac exposure to env reg	board \| share \| none	Fraction of directors on the board with exposure to environmental regulations.	Construction of environmental-regulation exposure not supplied.

a director's own expertise status

20.6

1.6

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (5 measures)
donelson_et_al_2025	CPA	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is a certified public accountant or equivalent, and zero otherwise.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Acc	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if an outside director has work experience as a certified public accountant, chief financial officer, vice president of finance, financial controller, or another major accounting position.
jiang_et_al_2016	Accountant	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is an accounting professional.
kang_et_al_2022	Accountant (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is an accountant and 0 otherwise.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Director had financial skills	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director was a chartered financial analyst or certified public accountant, or was currently or previously employed as a chief financial officer at another firm.	CFA/CPA certification or CFO career; grouped with accounting certification/career.
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (3 measures)
benton_2021	Finance background	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, by year t, the director had been listed as a CFO in Execucomp or had ever been affiliated with a financial institution listed in BoardEx, including investment or commercial banks, private equity funds, investment funds, or other financial institutions.
chen_et_al_2020	Director with finance experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if before appointment the director held a CFO or treasurer title or worked in banking, finance, or investment firms, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Finance experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports that the director has finance experience.
Definition: Firm-designated (SOX/audit-committee) financial expert (2 measures)
gow_et_al_2018	Financial Expert	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the reporting firm classifies the director as a financial expert, and 0 otherwise.
krause_et_al_2017	Financial Expertise	director \| binary \| none	Indicator reflecting the board's designation of the outside director as a financial expert.
Definition: Employment or board seat at a financial institution (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2016	Banking	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is employed by a financial institution.
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (5 measures)
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Current executive indicator	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is currently a senior executive of another company, such as CFO, treasurer, or president, and zero otherwise.
frankort_et_al_2026	Work role	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the director has a non-board work role in year t and 0 otherwise; such roles are almost exclusively senior and executive positions in this population.
jiang_et_al_2016	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director's primary employer is another nonfinancial firm and the director does not hold a CEO or chairman position.
krause_et_al_2017	Business Expert	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that an outside director's primary employment title is executive, such as CEO, COO, CFO, president, or vice-president, at another for-profit firm.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Top executive at another firm	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director was employed as a top executive at another firm in the year the financial fraud was initially revealed.
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	CEO Position	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the executive holds a CEO position at any public firm and 0 otherwise.
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Current CEO indicator	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is currently CEO of another company and zero otherwise.
jiang_et_al_2016	CEOChair	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the focal independent director is the CEO or chairman of another company.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	CEO Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the individual held a CEO position at a public firm and 0 otherwise.
chang_wu_2021	Past CEO	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director has ever held a CEO position.
gormley_et_al_2023	CEO experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director had experience as CEO of a public or private company in a prior fiscal year.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (3 measures)
benton_2021	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director has held a C-level executive position in a public corporation, constructed by matching ISS board rosters to Execucomp and flagging listed C-level executives.
chen_et_al_2020	Director with executive experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if before appointment the director held any listed executive role, including CEO, CFO, CIO, COO, president, vice president, partner, managing director, or treasurer, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Management experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports management experience.
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Treatment (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One for an outside director with China experience before 2000 and zero for a matched director without China experience throughout the sample period.	Matched treatment variant of the same China-experience classifier.
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Director with foreign experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if the director studied abroad or worked in non-U.S. firms before the appointment year, and zero otherwise.
Definition: Employment at the focal firm (insider role) (2 measures)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Insider: Other employee	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the director was employed by the focal firm in a role other than CEO.	Insider employment at the focal firm read as the director's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
wu_2025	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the DSM is a senior manager or executive director at the focal firm and 0 otherwise; zero identifies supervisory nonexecutive directors in the cross-sectional analysis.	Insider-executive status read as the director's own role history; individual status.
Definition: Focal firm's former CEO serving on its board (1 measure)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Insider: CEO	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the director was employed by the focal firm as its CEO.	Insider employment at the focal firm read as the director's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
Definition: Years employed within the focal business group (1 measure)
jeong_et_al_2022	Exp. in business group	director \| continuous \| none	Total number of years the director had been employed within the focal business group.	Tenure within the focal business group read as role history; individual status.
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (4 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Legal or consulting experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports legal or consulting experience.	ISS/BoardEx flag combines legal with consulting experience.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Law	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if a director has work experience as a lawyer and/or a law degree such as a J.D., LL.M., or LL.D.
jiang_et_al_2016	Lawyer	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is a legal professional.
kang_et_al_2022	Attorney (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is an attorney and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Career breadth: counts of industries, firms, positions (5 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	# Industries	director \| count \| none	Number of industries, defined at the two-digit SIC level, in which the individual worked over the individual's career.
baer_et_al_2023	# Firms	director \| count \| none	Number of firms where the individual worked over the individual's career.
baer_et_al_2023	# Positions	director \| count \| none	Number of different positions the individual held over the individual's career at public firms in the BoardEx universe.
ding_et_al_2026	# Prior Exec Dir	director \| count \| none	Number of prior executive-director positions held by director j; the regressions use its natural logarithm.
kang_et_al_2022	Director Experience	director \| count \| none	Number of industries in which the director served on a board.
Definition: Number of coded skills per director (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Director skills	director \| count \| none	Number of the 20 coded skill categories assigned to a director from the proxy-statement nomination description.
hsu_et_al_2025	# Skills	director \| count \| none	Number of skills possessed by a director under the authors' manual classification.
Definition: Years at other family companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fam Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another family company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Years at other lone-founder companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fdr Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another lone-founder company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Years at other regular public companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Pub Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another regular public company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Worked for a multidivision (conglomerate) firm (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	Conglomerate Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the individual worked for a multidivision firm and 0 otherwise.
Definition: CEO of a firm with M&A in past year (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Departing director is CEO of another firm with M&As (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the departing director is CEO of another firm that experienced M&A during the 12 months before the departure announcement.
Definition: Academic employment or professor status (3 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Academic experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports that the director has academic experience.
jiang_et_al_2016	Academic	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director's primary employer is an academic or educational institution.
kang_et_al_2022	Professor (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is a professor and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Total career length in years (1 measure)
jeong_et_al_2022	Work experience	director \| continuous \| none	Total number of years the director had been employed in any job.
Definition: Prior manufacturing work experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Director with manufacturing experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if the director worked in manufacturing before the appointment year, and zero otherwise.
Definition: Military service (2 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Military experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports military experience.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Served in the military	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director served in the military before beginning a corporate career.
Definition: Community influential: academia, government, medicine background (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Community Influential	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director's primary title includes professor, university administrator, educational consultant, editor, private physician, government official, or politician.
Definition: Support specialist: accounting, banking, law, marketing background (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Support Specialist	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director has a background in accounting, banking, law, or public affairs/marketing.
Definition: Retired designation (1 measure)
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Retired	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is designated retired and zero otherwise.
Definition: Composite of government service, positions, SOE management (1 measure)
zhu_yoshikawa_2016	Director capital	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Index formed by standardizing and summing educational background, tenure in government service, number of positions held in government and its agencies, and managerial experience in state-owned enterprises. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68.
Definition: Nonprofit leadership experience count (1 measure)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Nonprofit leadership experience	director \| count \| none	Director-level count of nonprofit leadership experience; the paper does not define which positions or organizations qualify.
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
hsu_et_al_2025	Exposure to env reg	director \| binary \| none	Director-level indicator or measure of exposure to environmental regulations; detailed construction is not supplied.	Detailed construction not supplied by the paper.

a nominee/appointee's own expertise status

13.4

2.7

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Financial	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is or was a CFO, treasurer, banker, accountant, auditor, or securities broker; works or worked in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking; or majored in finance or accounting.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Previously held a CFO position (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	CFO Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the appointee has CFO experience and 0 otherwise.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (2 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	Appointed director (candidate) is a CEO (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the appointee or candidate is CEO of a public firm.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s Fortune CEO status	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the new director was a Fortune CEO and zero otherwise.	Fortune-list CEO status variant of current-CEO classifier.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	CEO experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate has CEO experience.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Keyexec	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, at nomination, the independent-director nominee is a key executive holding an equivalent of CEO, president, chairman, CFO, CIO, COO, VP, executive VP, senior VP, managing partner, managing director, treasurer, or another chief-officer title.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Board candidate's top management experience	director \| continuous \| none	Potential candidate's top management experience; the paper does not state whether this is years, positions, or another quantity.	Quantity units unstated, but top-management classifier is clear.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Ten-indicator nominee quality index, with exposure interactions (3 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Exposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Qindex and Exposed, setting the quality value to zero for unexposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	director \| count \| none	Simple sum of ten binary quality indicators for an independent-director nominee: Keyexec, HP_firm, S&P 1500, Patents, Multiple_seats, Degree, MBA, Financial, Legal, and Industry.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Unexposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Qindex and Unexposed, setting the quality value to zero for exposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
Definition: Five-indicator nominee experience index, with exposure interactions (2 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience × Unexposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Experience and Unexposed, setting experience quality to zero for exposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience	director \| count \| none	Simple sum of Keyexec, S&P 1500, HP_firm, Patents, and Multiple_seats for an independent-director nominee.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Standardized composite: executive, director, government, professional-organization years (2 measures)
jiang_et_al_2021	CHC²	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Squared term of Candidate human capital (CHC).	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
jiang_et_al_2021	Candidate human capital (CHC)	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Average of standardized values of cumulative years of top-executive experience, cumulative years of director experience, cumulative government experience, and cumulative professional-organization experience.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	China-director appointment (indicator)	event \| binary \| none	One for a matched treatment firm appointing an outside director with China experience and zero for a matched control firm appointing an outside director without China experience.	Matched appointment variant of the same China-experience classifier.; Level coded event, but the indicator encodes the appointee's China experience in a matched appointment design; entity appointee.
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Legal	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is or was an attorney, legal counsel, or lawyer, or majored in law.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Generic M&A experience flag (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	M&A experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate or appointee has M&A experience.	Deal-experience classifier underspecified but stated; kept as own generic group.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Executive of a firm holding granted patents (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Patents	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive of a firm with at least one granted patent in the year before nomination.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Total career length in years (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2021	number of years since they first appeared in an upper echelon	director \| continuous \| none	Elapsed number of years since the candidate first appeared in an upper-echelon position in the public-firm annual-report data.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Executive or director experience at S&P index firms (2 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	S&P 500 experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate has director or executive experience at an S&P 500 firm.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
masulis_et_al_2024	S&P 1500	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive or director of an S&P 1500 constituent firm at nomination.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Executive of above-industry-median ROA firm (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	HP_firm	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive of a firm whose ROA in the year before nomination is above its Fama-French 30 industry median.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.

board expertise heterogeneity

4.9

2.8

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Dispersion of directors' industry backgrounds (Blau/HHI/cosine) (5 measures)
harrison_et_al_2024	Board industry diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau index, 1 minus the sum of squared proportions, calculated across non-executive directors' primary industry backgrounds. Each director's primary industry is the two-digit GIC industry in which the director accumulated the most years of experience before t.
hsu_et_al_2025	HHI sector	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl-Hirschman index across directors' sector-experience categories.	inverted polarity; HHI measures concentration; inverted relative to diversity orientation.
kang_et_al_2022	Board Experience Dispersion	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	One minus the sum of squared industry-experience shares for the board in a year; each industry share is the tenure-weighted number of incumbent outside directors with board experience in that industry divided by the total number of industries in which incumbent outside directors served on a board.
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in Blau diversity of directors’ primary one-digit-SIC industry backgrounds, defined by the industry with most years of top-executive experience.	First difference across CEO-succession boards, same industry-Blau definition.; Temporal difference of a multi-category Blau; the underlying quantity is heterogeneity.
jung_et_al_2023	Industry experience diversity	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Each director is represented by a binary vector indicating whether the director holds a directorship in each major SIC industry division. Cosine similarity is calculated for every pair of directors on the focal board, the pairwise similarities are averaged, and the average is reverse-coded. The resulting board measure ranges from zero to one, with higher values indicating greater diversity.	Pairwise-cosine procedure merged with Blau/HHI per ignore-procedure rule.; Pairwise-cosine procedure, but averaged over all board pairs it measures board-wide mixture, not a focal actor's position; heterogeneity rather than relational.
Definition: Dispersion across skill or professional-background categories (4 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Blau score	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Board-level Blau index calculated as one minus the sum across skill categories of the squared proportion of all director-skill instances in each category; the theoretical maximum is 19/20.
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Professional diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau's diversity index calculated from directors' distributions across 11 professional-background categories.
hsu_et_al_2025	HHI skill	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl-Hirschman index across directors' manually classified skill categories.	inverted polarity; HHI measures concentration; inverted relative to diversity orientation.
acharya_pollock_2021	Expertise Overlap	board \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Average over all director pairs of a binary comparison equal to 1 when the two directors were assigned the same primary-expertise category and 0 otherwise. The five categories were business experts, support specialists, community influentials, private equity managers, and venture capitalists.	inverted polarity; Pairwise same-category overlap over Hillman-style categories; inverted vs diversity.; Mean same-category share over five categories equals an HHI over a multi-category system; heterogeneity despite pairwise construction.
Definition: Count of distinct expertise areas represented (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Number of skills	board \| count \| none	Count of the 20 skill categories represented by at least one director on the board.	Variety count of distinct categories present (of 20) measures mixture breadth, not member prevalence; classed as heterogeneity.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board skill diversity	board \| count \| none	Number of unique director skills present on the board each year, based on the 20-category proxy-statement skill dictionary.	Variety count of distinct categories present (of 20) measures mixture breadth, not member prevalence; classed as heterogeneity.
Definition: Dispersion of functional-experience categories (2 measures)
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in Blau diversity across throughput, output, and peripheral functional expertise categories.	Temporal difference of a multi-category Blau; the underlying quantity is heterogeneity.
jung_et_al_2023	Functional experience diversity	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Each director is represented by a vector whose seven entries count job titles in sales, support, manufacturing and operations, research and development, finance, founding, and CEO experience. Cosine similarity is calculated for every director pair on the board, averaged over all pairs, and reverse-coded.	Pairwise-cosine procedure, but averaged over all board pairs it measures board-wide mixture, not a focal actor's position; heterogeneity rather than relational.
Definition: Sum of standardized industry, functional, board diversity (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Expertise diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Composite board-level measure obtained by standardizing Industry experience diversity, Functional experience diversity, and Board experience diversity as z-scores and summing the three standardized scores.
Definition: ASW faultline over human capital and committee memberships (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	Alignment: human capital and committees	board \| continuous \| faultline_algorithm	ASW faultline strength based on dominant functional experience, educational background, outsider status, and membership in audit, compensation, and nomination committees. The same algorithm as the main faultline measure is used; values range from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating stronger alignment.	Multi-attribute faultline alignment treated as within-board heterogeneity/configuration.
Definition: Industry diversity of breakthrough-innovation board interlocks (1 measure)
kraft_et_al_2025	Board expertise	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	A Blau heterogeneity index, 1 minus the sum of squared industry proportions, based on a focal board's director interlocks with other firms that produced breakthrough innovations while the focal director served there. The director must have joined the other board at least one year before the breakthrough innovation and remained for the subsequent year. Interlocks are observed from t−4 through t, grouped into ten distinct three-digit SIC industry categories, and multiple interlocks within an industry are aggregated.

the CEO's own expertise status

9.9

1.6

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO accounting	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the CEO's dominant functional background is accounting and finance and 0 otherwise.	CEO's dominant accounting/finance functional background; broad finance-background classifier.
Definition: Previously held a CFO position (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the CEO previously held a chief financial officer position and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (2 measures)
garg_et_al_2018	Repeat CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy indicating whether the focal CEO had previously been a CEO.
zhu_shen_2016	Prior experience as a CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the incoming outside CEO had previously been a CEO and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	CEO GM experience	ceo \| continuous \| none	Number of years of experience the inventor CEO accumulated in the general-management function before becoming CEO.	Years in general-management function merged with prior-executive experience.
Definition: Incoming CEO's pre-event focal-board membership (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Parent CEOt+1 was not on prior board	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the post-spinoff parent CEO did not serve on the pre-spinoff parent board.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-board service.; Prior membership on the pre-spinoff board read as the CEO's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded overlap.
denis_et_al_2015	Unit CEOt+1 was not on prior board	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the post-spinoff unit CEO did not serve on the pre-spinoff parent board.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-board service.; Prior membership on the pre-spinoff board read as the CEO's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded overlap.
Definition: Focal firm's former CEO serving on its board (1 measure)
zorn_et_al_2020	Former CEO on board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the former CEO remains on the focal firm's board.	Level coded board, but the dummy encodes one specific person's (the former CEO's) continued board seat; individual status.
Definition: Years in the focal CEO position (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	CEO tenure	ceo \| continuous \| none	Number of years the current CEO had held the CEO position.
Definition: New CEO previously an officer of the focal firm (1 measure)
graham_et_al_2020	Outside CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a newly appointed CEO was not a previous officer of the firm, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-firm officer role.; Absence of prior employment at the firm read as the CEO's own role history; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
Definition: Founder or co-founder of the focal firm (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the CEO was a founder or co-founder of the focal firm and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (1 measure)
katila_et_al_2017	User–CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 when the firm's CEO in a particular year was a board-certified physician and 0 otherwise.
Definition: CEO listed as inventor on firm patents (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	Inventor CEO involvement	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 when the inventor CEO was listed as an inventor on patents filed by the focal company while serving as CEO and within two years before or after the current year, t − 2 through t + 2; otherwise 0.

composition of a firm-level group (recruit cohorts, founders, inventors)

3.6

2.6

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Ten-indicator nominee quality index, with exposure interactions (5 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Quality improvement	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s one-period-lagged pre-to-post change in the firm-year sum of Qindex × Unexposed is in the top tercile of its sample distribution.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	firm \| count \| none	Sum within a firm-year of Qindex values for all newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Unexposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Qindex × Unexposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year aggregation of Qindex for voluntarily departing independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Exposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Qindex × Exposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
Definition: Five-indicator nominee experience index, with exposure interactions (3 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Quality improvement	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s one-period-lagged pre-to-post change in the firm-year sum of Experience × Unexposed is in the top tercile of its sample distribution.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience × Unexposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Experience × Unexposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of the Experience index for newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
Definition: Founders' prior startup founding or employment (3 measures)
marx_et_al_2025	P(startup experience)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who previously worked at a startup as either a founder or an employee.	Includes startup employment, not only founding; grouped with founding measures.; Prevalence among the founding team.
marx_et_al_2025	P(serial founder)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who are serial entrepreneurs, meaning they previously founded a startup.	Prevalence among the founding team.
marx_et_al_2025	P(serial founder VC-backed)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who previously founded a venture-backed startup.	Prevalence among the founding team.
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Inventors	firm \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of inventors listed on the firm's patents who were identified as board-certified physicians by matching patent inventors to the AMA Physician Masterfile.	Prevalence among the firm's patent inventors, an employee group, not the board.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Inventors squared	firm \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Inventors, the yearly percentage of patent inventors who were board-certified physicians.	Prevalence among the firm's patent inventors, an employee group, not the board.

a director's expertise relative to the firm or fellow directors

3.8

3.3

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Career or biography experience in focal firm's industry (1 measure)
kang_et_al_2022	Director Experience Diversity (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if an outside director's industry experience differs from the focal firm's industry and 0 otherwise.	inverted polarity; Codes industry experience DIFFERENT from focal firm; inverted same-industry classifier.; Mismatch of the director's industry experience with the focal firm's industry; defined against the firm.
Definition: Years of directorships at other focal-industry firms (1 measure)
donelson_et_al_2025	Exp	director \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years for which the director served as an independent director at another firm in the focal firm's three-digit NAICS industry, excluding experience at the focal firm.	Coded relative_to=none, but the experience domain is pinned to the focal firm's industry; a same-industry match quantity, kept consistent with its other-industry complement.
Definition: Drug-introduction market experience via board interlocks, depreciated window (1 measure)
diestre_et_al_2015	Potential director’s experience	director \| continuous \| none	For each potential director, the authors counted new drugs introduced in each therapeutic market by every pharmaceutical firm on whose board the director served, summed this experience across markets the focal firm was considering entering, and accumulated it over the most recent three-year window with a 40 percent depreciation factor.	Experience counted only in markets the focal firm is considering entering; an overlap-weighted fit quantity.
Definition: Experience in industries outside the focal firm's (1 measure)
field_et_al_2020	Other industry experience	director \| continuous \| none	Number of years the director served on boards outside the focal firm's industry.	Years outside the focal firm's industry; defined by difference from the firm.
Definition: Skills or experiences no other board member possesses (3 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills dummy	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director has at least one skill that no other director on the board possesses.
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills	director \| count \| none	Count of the director's skills that no other director on the same board possesses.
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills fraction	director \| share \| none	Ratio of the number of unique skills the director has to the director's total number of skills.
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
hsu_et_al_2025	Industry experience	director \| binary \| none	Director-level indicator for industry experience; the relevant industry and experience threshold are not supplied.	Relevant industry and experience threshold not supplied.; Coded rel=firm/overlap; an industry-match indicator against the focal firm (construction vague).

committee composition of experts

2.3

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (3 measures)
chychyla_et_al_2019	HighACRatioAcc	committee \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when ACRatioAcc is in the third tercile.
chychyla_et_al_2019	ACNumAcc	committee \| count \| none	Number of audit committee accounting experts. An expert has a CPA or similar certification or has worked as an auditor, tax expert, financial controller, treasurer, or CFO.
chychyla_et_al_2019	ACRatioAcc	committee \| share \| none	ACNumAcc divided by ACSize.
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors on the CDC	committee \| count \| none	Number of directors classified as possessing finance skills who served on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
Definition: Entrepreneurial-skill keywords in proxy biography (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors on the CDC	committee \| count \| none	Number of directors classified as possessing entrepreneurial skills who served on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.

an executive's own expertise status

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Specific C-suite title held by focal executive (4 measures)
boivie_et_al_2016	COO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was chief operating officer.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	President	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive held the title of president.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	CFO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was chief financial officer.	CFO title grouped with parallel executive-title indicators, not financial expertise.; Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	Subsidiary CEO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was CEO of a subsidiary of the focal firm.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.

board expertise matched against another profile

1.8

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: CEO-director prevalence on directors' other boards (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	Average proportion of CEO-directors on other boards served by focal directors in the previous three years	board \| share \| none	Average proportion of CEO-directors on other boards on which focal-board directors served during the previous three years.	Reference set is other boards served, not the focal board; kept separate.; Prevalence of CEO-directors on focal directors' OTHER boards: a network-exposure quantity defined against tied boards, not focal-board composition.
Definition: Board expertise proportions matched against firm risk domains (2 measures)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Strategic board reconfiguration	board \| continuous \| none	Board misalignment in year 0 minus board misalignment in year 3, where year-3 board expertise remains compared with year-0 risks, measuring improvement in alignment over a three-year window.	Three-year change in the misalignment measure; same definition.; Board expertise mix compared domain-by-domain against the firm's risk profile; a matching quantity, not member prevalence.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Board misalignment	board \| continuous \| none	Sum, across the eight domains, of same-year firm-risk proportion minus board-expertise proportion only where expertise is smaller than risk. Year-0 misalignment uses year-0 expertise and risks; year-3 misalignment compares year-3 expertise with year-0 forward-looking risks.	Board expertise mix compared domain-by-domain against the firm's risk profile; a matching quantity, not member prevalence.

a candidate's expertise relative to incumbents or the firm

3.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Incumbent-candidate background similarity index (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Demographic similarity beyond gender	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	A discrete-principal-components index combining incumbent-candidate same-category indicators for functional background, age, race, highest degree earned, and possession of an elite Ivy League degree; age similarity equals one when the individuals differ by less than one standard deviation.	Incumbent-candidate similarity index; relational, entity appointee.
Definition: Experience in industries outside the focal firm's (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Different industry from firm (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the candidate’s portfolio of industries in which she serves as director or executive includes a BoardEx sector outside the appointing firm’s industry.	Candidate's industry portfolio compared with the appointing firm's industry; relational, entity appointee.
Definition: Skills or experiences no other board member possesses (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Number of new experiences	director \| count \| none	Sum of 24 indicators, each equal to one when the candidate has an experience that no incumbent director has.	24-experience dictionary vs 20-skill dictionary; same distinctiveness definition.; Candidate's experiences no incumbent director has; uniqueness against incumbents, entity appointee.

TMT composition of experts

1.8

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Standardized composite: executive, director, government, professional-organization years (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2021	Upper-echelon human capital	tmt \| continuous \| none	For year t, sum of the human capital of all executives and directors disclosed in the declining firm’s annual report for year t−1.	Sums human capital across executives AND directors; a group aggregate spanning TMT and board, kept at tmt per the coded level.
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Executives	tmt \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of the firm's senior executives who were identified as board-certified physicians through the AMA Physician Masterfile.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Executives squared	tmt \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Executives, the yearly percentage of senior executives who were board-certified physicians.

the chair's own expertise status

2.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)
Definition: Factor score of tenure and directorship human-capital proxies (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2016	Chair Human Capital	chair \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Factor score for the human-capital factor retained from a principal-axis exploratory factor analysis of six chair-level proxies: years serving on the focal board, years working at the focal firm, total nonfocal boards served on to date, nonfocal boards served on in the focal year, same-four-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year, and same-two-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year. Factors with eigenvalues of at least one were retained.
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (1 measure)
xu_et_al_2023	Overseas experience	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the chair has worked or studied in an OECD country and 0 otherwise.

expertise of the firm's regulatory environment

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: SEC regional-office leaders/staff with finance or accounting careers (2 measures)
blann_2026	FinExperience	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a company overseen, based on its headquarters location, by an SEC regional office led by a regional director with prior professional experience at a financial firm, at an accounting firm, or in an accounting- or finance-related corporate role; zero otherwise.	Expertise of the SEC regional office overseeing the firm: an attribute of the firm's regulatory environment, not of its people.
blann_2026	NonFinExperience	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a company overseen by an SEC office formerly led by a regional director with financial experience but currently led by a regional director without financial experience, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; Flags loss of finance-experienced leadership; inverted.; Expertise of the SEC regional office overseeing the firm: an attribute of the firm's regulatory environment, not of its people.

regional regulatory-environment expertise

1.0

2.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: SEC regional-office leaders/staff with finance or accounting careers (2 measures)
blann_2026	StaffFinExperience	other \| share \| none	Percentage of lower-level staff in a regional office-year, among employees with located LinkedIn profiles, who had worked for a financial or accounting firm or in a financial or accounting role elsewhere.	Level coded other; share of SEC regional-office staff with finance backgrounds functions as a regulatory-environment attribute. Entity region (outside the listed set; the natural entity, the regulator's office, is not listed).
blann_2026	FinExperienceRegion	region \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a region overseen by an SEC office led by a regional director with financial experience, and zero otherwise.	Regulatory-environment attribute; entity region kept from the coded level (outside the listed entity set).

chair expertise distance from other directors

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Committee-chair versus other-director expertise dissimilarity composite (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Expertise minority chairs	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For compensation-, audit-, and nomination-committee chairs, the authors retain chair–nonchair director pairs and calculate mean cosine similarity in industry experience and functional experience, reverse-code both similarities, and calculate the absolute difference between chairs’ and nonchairs’ mean outside-directorship counts. The three scores are standardized as z-scores and added.	Level coded board, but the quantity is committee chairs' expertise distance from non-chair directors; relational, entity chair.

CEO expertise overlap with directors

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: CEO-director dyadic functional-experience overlap (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO function overlap	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Average dyadic overlap in personal range of functional experiences across all possible dyads of the CEO and demographic minority directors. Personal range includes all current and past functional experiences over each person's career.	Level coded board, but the quantity is the CEO's functional-experience overlap with (minority) directors; relational, entity CEO.

committee expertise heterogeneity

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Count of distinct expertise areas represented (1 measure)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Nominating committee expertise	committee \| count \| none	Sum of the distinct expertise areas present on the nominating committee.	Committee-level count of distinct expertise areas; level ignored per rules.; Variety count of distinct expertise areas present; mixture breadth, classed as heterogeneity.

industry-environment expertise attribute

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Board expertise proportions matched against firm risk domains (1 measure)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Industry average misalignment	industry \| continuous \| none	Average board misalignment across firms in the focal firm's two-digit SIC industry.	Industry-average aggregation of the same misalignment measure.; Industry mean of a board-firm alignment measure; an attribute of the industry environment (benchmark), classed context_attribute.

TMT expertise heterogeneity

1.0

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Definition: Dispersion of directors' industry backgrounds (Blau/HHI/cosine) (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	TMT industry diversity	tmt \| continuous \| concentration_index	Industry diversity of non-CEO executives at or above Executive Vice President or Senior Vice President, calculated in the same way as board industry diversity using executives' complete employment histories and primary two-digit GIC industry backgrounds.

Five expertise records state an operationalization too vague to assign a definition. They are excluded from the definition and form counts above but still appear inside the expanded listings, under “Operationalization too vague to determine definition”, so three expanded rows hold slightly more measures than their Measures column reports.

How the draft classification was made, and why it cannot be trusted as-is. An LLM read each record's operationalization text and assigned it a sub-construct, a quantity (gender and expertise pilots), and a definition group under the terms set out in the Definitions section (form ignored, transformations ignored, inverted-polarity variants merged and flagged, records with insufficient text marked indeterminate). This is a single uncalibrated pass: no second coder, no adjudication, no gold standard. Treat the group labels as a reading aid and a feasibility demonstration, not as results. Deciding where one definition ends and another begins requires human judgment; the Coding pilot section describes how those judgments are made explicit and then extended by LLM under written rules.

Full record listings

Gender: 161 measures, 58 papers

Lower bound (mechanical; no text is read): raw count 28 forms, effective number 10.6; 17% of measures use the modal form (director-level binary, no named procedure).
LLM draft classification (reads the operationalization text): 4 sub-constructs; 18 quantities; raw count 37 definition groups, effective number 7.3.

How the lower bound arises: every occupied form cell

Level	Resolution	Named procedure	Measures
director	binary	none	28
board	share	none	25
ceo	binary	none	19
country	binary	none	16
board	binary	none	13
board	count	none	8
firm	binary	none	7
event	binary	none	6
board	continuous	latent_weighting	5
board	continuous	concentration_index	4
firm	continuous	latent_weighting	3
board	continuous	none	3
firm	count	none	3
industry	share	none	3
chair	binary	none	2
tmt	count	none	2
country	count	none	2
firm	share	none	2
director	continuous	latent_weighting	1
tmt	share	none	1
country	share	none	1
firm	continuous	none	1
other	binary	none	1
period	share	none	1
committee	binary	none	1
board	continuous	model_derived	1
tmt	binary	none	1
ceo	continuous	latent_weighting	1

The effective number is the inverse Simpson index of these cell shares: 1 / Σ p_i².

All records, grouped by the LLM draft classification

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Sub-construct: gender
Quantity: board gender composition (49 measures)
Definition: directors classified female in board data source (47 measures)
chen_et_al_2016	at least one female director	board \| binary \| none	Binary indicator equal to one when at least one female director was present on the board in a given firm-year.
chen_et_al_2020	Female board (indicator)	board \| binary \| none	One if the firm has a female outside director on the board, and zero otherwise.
gormley_et_al_2023	Zero_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had no female board members at end-fiscal-2016.	inverted polarity
gormley_et_al_2023	LessTwo_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had fewer than two female board members at the end of fiscal year 2016.	inverted polarity
gormley_et_al_2023	At least one female director	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the firm having at least one female director.
gormley_et_al_2023	One_2016	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the firm had one female board member at end-fiscal-2016.
guiso_et_al_2026	Any F. BM	board \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the firm-year board has at least one female member and zero otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	Any F exec	board \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if any executive board member is female.
hu_et_al_2025	All-men board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm has no woman director and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity
kang_et_al_2022	Board Gender Dispersion (indicator)	board \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if at least one outside director on the board is female and 0 otherwise.
solal_snellman_2019	Has female director	board \| binary \| none	Treatment indicator equal to 1 for firms with at least one female director and 0 for firms with all-male boards.
huang_hilary_2018	Gender Diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Board-level Blau index, one minus the sum of squared director-category shares, using female and male categories.	binary-attribute Blau index is a deterministic function of the female share; composition per rule
jung_et_al_2023	Gender diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Reverse-coded Herfindahl concentration index based on the numbers of female and nonfemale directors relative to total board size; higher values indicate a more gender-diverse board.	reverse-coded Herfindahl over two gender categories; composition per rule
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in gender diversity, with each board’s diversity measured by Blau’s index.	change in gender-only Blau index; composition per rule
gormley_et_al_2023	Change in number of females	board \| continuous \| none	Net increase in the number of female directors on the board relative to the previous fiscal year.
connelly_et_al_2021	Female directors	board \| count \| none	Number of female directors on the board; the variable is logged.
greene_et_al_2026	Gap	board \| count \| none	Difference between the number of female directors needed for the firm to comply with SB 826 by the end of 2021 and the number of female directors on its board before SB 826 was signed.	female-director count expressed as distance to SB 826 quota compliance; still board composition
guiso_et_al_2026	Male board members	board \| count \| none	Number of men serving on the focal firm's board; regression models use the year-on-year change in this count.	inverted polarity
guiso_et_al_2026	Female board members	board \| count \| none	Number of women serving on the focal firm's board; regression models use the year-on-year change in this count.
pan_et_al_2025	Number of female directors	board \| count \| none	Total number of women serving on the board, reduced by one when the CEO is a woman.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board gender diversity	board \| count \| none	Number of female directors on the board.
solal_snellman_2019	No. of female directors	board \| count \| none	Number of female board members sitting at the date of the firm’s annual meeting in the calendar year.
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of male directors	board \| share \| none	The proportion of board directors who are male.	inverted polarity
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board gender diversity	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by board size, measured in the survey year.
bernile_et_al_2018	Female board member ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
chen_et_al_2016	Female board representation	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors in a given firm-year divided by total board size.
chen_et_al_2016	Proportion of female executives	board \| share \| none	Proportion of female directors on the focal board who concurrently occupied executive positions in other S&P firms.	share of female directors holding executive roles elsewhere; numerator adds a non-gender condition, kept as board gender composition with caveat
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Director Ratio (LN)	board \| share \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the proportion of female directors on the board: ln(1 + female director ratio).
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Director Ratio	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors on the firm's board who are female.
delis_et_al_2017	Gender	board \| share \| none	Percentage of male directors on the board.	inverted polarity
donelson_et_al_2025	PctFemale	board \| share \| none	Number of firm directors identified as female by BoardEx, divided by total directors.
friedman_2020	FEMDIR	board \| share \| none	Fraction of board seats at firm j held by women, based on the most recent annual meeting preceding the fund reporting date.
gormley_et_al_2023	Female director share	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by total board size.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of female directors that depart	board \| share \| none	Female directors present at prior fiscal year-end but absent at focal fiscal year-end, divided by all female directors present at prior fiscal year-end.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of directors that are newly hired females	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board at fiscal year-end who were absent at the prior fiscal year-end, divided by total directors at focal fiscal year-end.
guiso_et_al_2026	Share F. BM	board \| share \| none	Number of female board members divided by total board members, expressed in percentage points; analyses also use its year-on-year first difference and leads of one to three years.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female director ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
hu_et_al_2025	% women directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors on the board who are women.
kang_kang_2024	Board female ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by board size.
luo_et_al_2021	Female directors	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by total directors.
mitra_et_al_2021	Female board representation	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors on the board divided by the number of all directors on the board in the firm-year.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of the non-CEO directors on the board who are female.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	% male directors	board \| share \| none	Number of male directors divided by total director count.	inverted polarity
van_peteghem_et_al_2018	PCTGENDER	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by total board members.
wu_2025	Female	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
you_et_al_2023	Proportion of female directors	board \| share \| none	Number of female directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
hu_et_al_2025	Underrep. of women dir.	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s number of women directors is below the industry median and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded firm; board female count compared with industry median; below-median coding is inverted polarity
Definition: director classified female or racial minority (2 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive minority chairs	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when a woman or director from an underrepresented racial group holds any compensation-, audit-, or nomination-committee chair position on the board.	gender is one of two attributes (female or racial minority); any-dummy over key-committee chairs
naumovska_et_al_2020	No. of minority directors at nonfraudulent firm	board \| count \| none	Number of female and ethnic minority directors serving on the focal nonfraudulent firm’s board.	gender is one of two attributes (count of female plus ethnic-minority directors)
Quantity: director gender (26 measures)
Definition: director classified female in board data source (23 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is female and zero otherwise.
benton_2021	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a female director.
busenbark_et_al_2023	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director is female and 0 otherwise.
cai_et_al_2021	Appointee is female (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the appointee is female.
donelson_et_al_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if BoardEx identifies the director as female, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if ISS classifies the director as female.
gormley_et_al_2023	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the board member is female.
gow_et_al_2018	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the director is female and 0 otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	Female=1 + in Target=1	director \| binary \| none	Joint indicator equal to one if a newly appointed director is female and currently sits on a target-company board.	joint indicator: female AND sits on quota-target board; gender content is individual status, tie flagged
guiso_et_al_2026	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if individual j is female and zero otherwise.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that a director is female.
jiang_et_al_2016	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is female.
jiang_et_al_2021	Candidate gender	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female candidate and 0 for a male candidate.
kang_et_al_2022	Director Gender Diversity (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if an outside director is female and 0 otherwise.
kang_et_al_2022	Female (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is female and 0 otherwise.
krause_et_al_2017	Female Director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for female directors and 0 for male directors.
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the independent-director nominee or departing independent director is female.
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Female	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that a director was female, as reported in RiskMetrics.
mitra_et_al_2021	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director candidate up for election is female and zero if the candidate is male.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Female director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator identifying female directors; used separately from ethnic-minority status in supplementary tests and also forms one trigger condition of Minority director.
von_meyerinck_et_al_2025	Female (d)	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is female, and zero otherwise.
zhu_chen_2014	Gender	director \| binary \| none	Gender of the new director; coding categories are not stated.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female	other \| binary \| none	Respondent-gender grouping identifying female respondents; exact indicator coding is not stated.	level coded 'other' (survey respondent); treated as individual gender status of respondent, entity uncertain
Definition: gender self-reported in survey (1 measure)
adams_licht_2025	Female	director \| binary \| none	Dummy for a female director, based on the respondent’s indicated gender in the survey and the corresponding gender variable in Boardex benchmarking.	identified by survey self-report (with BoardEx benchmarking), split from vendor-classified group
Definition: gender inferred from names and photographs (1 measure)
frankort_et_al_2026	Woman director	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the director is a woman and 0 otherwise, coded using first names and photographs in firms’ annual reports.	identified from first names and photographs, split from vendor-classified group
Definition: director classified female or racial minority (1 measure)
naumovska_et_al_2020	Minority director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female director or a director categorized as African American, Arab, Asian, or Hispanic, and 0 for a White male director.	gender is one of two attributes (female or ethnic-minority director)
Quantity: CEO gender (22 measures)
Definition: CEO classified female in executive data (21 measures)
he_whited_2026	Conditional choice probabilities	board \| continuous \| model_derived	Model-implied probability of choosing a female CEO conditional on the observed state, generated from the dynamic-model solution and simulated histories initialized at each firm's observed initial state; simulations are repeated 100 times.	level coded board; target is the gender of the chosen CEO (model-implied probability), so assigned to CEO individual status
he_whited_2026	Conditional choice probabilities	board \| share \| none	Observed frequency with which boards choose a female CEO among firms at a given model state, aggregated over CEO gender, firm-size, and candidate-pool-composition groups.	level coded board; observed frequency of choosing a female CEO, assigned to CEO individual status like its model counterpart
brenner_2015	Gender	ceo \| binary \| none	CEO gender, compared as male versus female.
chen_et_al_2016	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the CEO was female.
field_et_al_2020	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator identifying a female CEO; exact source is not stated.
garg_et_al_2018	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female CEO and 0 otherwise.
guiso_et_al_2026	F CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the firm's CEO is female.
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy variable coded 1 for a female CEO and 0 for a male CEO.
harrison_et_al_2024	CEO is female	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the inventor CEO is female.
he_whited_2026	Gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm's CEO is female and zero otherwise; in the structural model, the CEO gender decision equals one when the appointed CEO is female.
hsu_et_al_2025	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator for a female chief executive officer.
hu_et_al_2025	Woman CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm has a woman CEO and zero otherwise.
kraft_et_al_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	CEO gender; the supplied text does not state which gender is coded one, but the descriptive statistics establish a binary measure.
lel_2024	Female	ceo \| binary \| none	Gender of the CEO or director; reported statistics establish a binary variable, but the appendix does not explicitly state which value denotes female.	applies to CEO or director; coding polarity not stated in source
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 0 for a male CEO and 1 for a female CEO.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the appointed CEO is female and 0 if the appointed CEO is male.
pan_et_al_2025	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Dichotomous indicator equal to one if the CEO is a woman.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a female CEO and 0 for a male CEO.
solal_snellman_2019	CEO gender	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 if the CEO is a woman and 0 otherwise.
you_et_al_2023	Female CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the CEO is female; exact coding language is not provided.
cumming_et_al_2015	Female General Manager	tmt \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm is led by a female general manager and 0 otherwise.	level coded tmt but the general manager is a single top executive (Chinese setting); assigned to CEO-equivalent individual status
Definition: CEO classified female or nonwhite (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive minority CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the CEO is female or nonwhite.	gender is one of two attributes (female or nonwhite CEO)
Quantity: multi-attribute board diversity including gender (7 measures)
Definition: multi-attribute diversity index including female share (Bernile-style) (5 measures)
bernile_et_al_2018	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Change in the board-diversity index over a three-year window, measured three years ahead to allow board composition to adjust to flight-route changes.	gender (female share) is one input among six attributes; heterogeneity per what the index does
bernile_et_al_2018	Board executives diversity index	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Diversity index for board members who are also executives of the same firm; the supplied text does not state its exact arithmetic construction.	multi-attribute diversity index restricted to executive directors; construction not fully stated
bernile_et_al_2018	Board diversity index	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Main text: sum of standardized female-director share, standard deviation of director age, mean other-board seats, and sign-reversed Herfindahl indexes for ethnicity, Bachelor’s institution, and financial expertise, with equal weights.	gender is one input among six attributes
bernile_et_al_2018	Demographic diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Index calculated from percent female, standard deviation of age, and sign-reversed HHI ethnicity, normalized by its sample mean and standard deviation.	three-attribute subset (gender, age, ethnicity) of the same paper's index; kept with Bernile-style group
bernile_et_al_2018	Non-executive diversity index	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, the difference between the Board diversity index and the Board executives diversity index.	arithmetic difference of two multi-attribute indices; gender one input among six
Definition: gender plus race/ethnicity diversity composite (2 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	Ascriptive diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Composite board-level measure obtained by standardizing Gender diversity and Racial diversity as z-scores and adding the two standardized scores.	gender is one of two attributes (gender + race z-scores summed)
naumovska_et_al_2020	Board diversity at fraudulent firm	board \| continuous \| none	Gender-diversity and ethnic-diversity Blau indices for the fraudulent firm’s board, excluding the focal director, each divided by its respective median and then summed.	gender is one of two attributes (gender + ethnicity Blau indices summed)
Quantity: firm gender-diversity policy / environment (6 measures)
Definition: multi-attribute diversity of geographic director pool (3 measures)
bernile_et_al_2018	Diversity of local directors	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Board diversity index of all individuals serving as directors at any firm in the current year who reside within 150 miles of the focal firm’s headquarters.	gender one input among several in pool-diversity index; attribute of the local labor-pool environment
bernile_et_al_2018	Diversity of nonlocal directors w/in non-stop flight	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Weighted diversity, based on the board-diversity index, of potential directors residing more than 150 miles from headquarters in counties with at least one daily non-stop flight to headquarters; potential director-firm-year observations are weighted by average monthly non-stop flights between the county pair. Potential directors are directors or executives of other S&P 1500 firms in the same size quintile.	gender one input among several; flight-weighted accessible director pool
bernile_et_al_2018	Change in nonlocal potential director diversity due to changes in non-stop flight routes	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Three-year change in accessible nonlocal-potential-director diversity attributable to additions or deletions of non-stop flight routes connecting to headquarters.	gender one input among several; change induced by flight-route changes
Definition: female directors among interlocked firms' boards (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2016	Female director in the interlocking firms	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when firms interlocked with the focal board had any female directors.	female presence among interlocked firms' boards; treated as network-environment exposure of the focal firm
Definition: local geographic supply of female directors (1 measure)
mitra_et_al_2021	Female directors in geographic proximity	firm \| continuous \| none	Number of female directors serving on corporate boards within a 100-km (62.1-mile) radius of the focal firm's headquarters divided by the total number of public firms within that radius.	geographic supply of female directors around HQ; environment attribute, not the firm's own board
Definition: portfolio-weighted female-director share (1 measure)
friedman_2020	Female Director Fund Preference (FEMDIR_FP)	firm \| share \| none	Value-weighted average fraction of female directors across firms in the fund’s portfolio: each portfolio firm’s FEMDIR weighted by the fund’s dollar holdings and divided by total reported holdings.	fund-level portfolio-weighted average of investee boards' female shares; exposure/preference attribute
Quantity: appointee gender (5 measures)
Definition: appointee classified female in board data (4 measures)
hu_et_al_2025	Man committee chair, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a man among its new directors as chair of a governance, audit, compensation, or nominating committee, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender; male appointment is inverted polarity
hu_et_al_2025	Woman committee chair, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a woman among its new directors as chair of a governance, audit, compensation, or nominating committee, and zero otherwise.	level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender
hu_et_al_2025	Woman board chair/lead director, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a woman among its new directors as board chair or lead independent director, and zero otherwise.	level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender
hu_et_al_2025	Man board chair/lead director, new directors	event \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, in a year, a firm appoints a man among its new directors as board chair or lead independent director, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; level coded event; attribute is the appointed chair's gender; male appointment is inverted polarity
Definition: experimentally manipulated appointee gender (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	female board appointments	event \| binary \| none	Experimental manipulation in which a firm was described as appointing a female rather than a male director; further construction details are in the unavailable online appendix.	experimental vignette manipulates appointee gender; identifying fact is the manipulation, not a data classification
Quantity: director gender similarity to specific others (4 measures)
Definition: candidate and incumbent gender mismatch (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Gender difference between incumbent and candidate	director \| binary \| none	Dichotomous indicator that the incumbent director and potential board candidate do not have the same gender category.
Definition: director shares gender with incoming CEO (1 measure)
busenbark_et_al_2023	Gender alignment	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director and incoming CEO share a gender and 0 otherwise.
Definition: female candidate facing all-male incumbent board (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Female candidate for an all-male board (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if a candidate is female while every incumbent director is male.	relational uniqueness: candidate gender defined against all-male incumbent board
Definition: multi-attribute difference from CEO including gender (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s demographic difference from CEO	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Sum of standard scores for five CEO–director difference indicators: gender, ethnicity, age, elite education, and functional background. Age difference equals one when ages differ by more than one sample standard deviation; each other indicator equals one when the director and CEO differ on that dimension.	gender is one of five difference indicators summed
Quantity: firm-level gender composition (4 measures)
Definition: directors classified female in board data source (3 measures)
gormley_et_al_2023	NoFemaleLeader_2016	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator that at end-fiscal-2016 the firm had neither a female CEO nor a female director on the nominating, audit, or compensation committee.	inverted polarity
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	firm \| count \| none	Count of female newly recruited independent directors in a firm-year.
masulis_et_al_2024	Female	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year aggregation of female indicators for voluntarily departing independent directors.
Definition: CEO candidate pool members classified by gender (1 measure)
he_whited_2026	% male cand.	firm \| share \| none	Share of male candidates in a CEO candidate pool comprising the firm's past and current executives and board members plus current executives of peer firms in the same three-digit SIC industry.	inverted polarity; male share of CEO candidate pool; inverted polarity; pool spans own and peer-firm executives
Quantity: industry gender environment (4 measures)
Definition: female share among industry directors (2 measures)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Industry female directors	industry \| share \| none	Average percentage of females on boards within each firm's industry.
solal_snellman_2019	Industry diversity (%)	industry \| share \| none	Percentage of all directors in the focal firm’s two-digit-code industry who are female in the year, excluding directors of the focal firm.
Definition: female share among industry employees (1 measure)
cumming_et_al_2015	Female-dominated Industry	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm's industry class has more than 50% female employees and 0 otherwise, based on average Australian industry employment shares over 2004–2012 and a mapping of Australian sectors to Chinese sectors.	level coded firm but the fact is the industry's female employment share; entity overridden to industry
Definition: female share among industry executives (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Industry female executives	industry \| share \| none	Average percentage of female executives within each firm's industry.
Quantity: TMT gender composition (3 measures)
Definition: TMT members classified female (3 measures)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female top managers	tmt \| count \| none	Number of female firm officers above the rank of vice president, including positions such as CEO, chief financial officer, and senior vice president.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	TMT gender diversity	tmt \| count \| none	Number of female top management team members, operationalized in the same way as board gender diversity.	count of female TMT members, per source operationalized like the board count
kang_kang_2024	TMT female ratio	tmt \| share \| none	Number of female executives divided by top-management-team size.
Quantity: board chair gender (2 measures)
Definition: board chair classified female (2 measures)
cumming_et_al_2015	Female Chairperson	chair \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the firm is led by a female chairperson and 0 otherwise.
oliver_et_al_2018	Female chair	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the board chair is female and 0 otherwise.
Quantity: origin-country director gender composition (2 measures)
Definition: origin-country foreign directors classified female (2 measures)
barrios_et_al_2022	Female foreign directors	country \| count \| none	Number of foreign female directors from the origin country in period t.	dyadic firm-by-origin-country grain; count of foreign female directors, kept at coded country level
barrios_et_al_2022	Male foreign directors	country \| count \| none	Number of foreign male directors from the origin country in period t.	inverted polarity; male count is the inverted-polarity variant of the female count
Quantity: CEO gender similarity to other CEOs (1 measure)
Definition: multi-attribute similarity to tied CEOs including gender (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	Focal CEO’s demographic similarity to other CEOs	ceo \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For gender, ethnicity, age, elite education, and functional background, demographic similarity was measured as the squared percentage of other CEOs tied to a new director who were similar to the focal CEO; the overall measure is the sum of standard scores of the five dimension-specific measures.	gender is one of five attributes in a summed similarity index
Quantity: appointee cohort gender composition (1 measure)
Definition: newly appointed directors classified female (1 measure)
gormley_et_al_2023	Female share of newly appointed directors	period \| share \| none	Number of newly appointed directors who are women in a month divided by all directors newly appointed in that month.	level coded period; monthly cohort of newly appointed directors, entity overridden to appointee cohort
Quantity: board gender similarity to CEO (1 measure)
Definition: hiring directors sharing CEO gender category (1 measure)
zorn_et_al_2020	CEO-hiring director gender similarity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau heterogeneity-based measure using the proportion of hiring directors who share the CEO's gender category; the converted formula is incomplete or malformed.	relational: Blau-based share of hiring directors matching CEO gender; formula reported as malformed in source
Quantity: committee gender composition (1 measure)
Definition: female director present on nominating committee (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	Female on nominating committee	committee \| binary \| none	Coded 1 if the board's sole female director served on the firm's nominating committee and 0 if she did not.
Quantity: country gender regulation / environment (1 measure)
Definition: country female-director share used as exposure (1 measure)
friedman_2020	Local Female Director Fraction	country \| share \| none	Country-year average fraction of female directors on boards of firms located in the fund’s home country.	country female-director share used as an exposure/benchmark, hence context attribute
Sub-construct: gender_regulation
Quantity: country gender regulation / environment (16 measures)
Definition: country announced board gender-diversity intervention (16 measures)
baik_et_al_2024	Strong Enforcement Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a strongly enforced mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; strong enforcement imposes significant costs such as dissolution, fines, or penalties on the firm or board.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention Resulting in Above-Median BGD Increase	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 after the firm-year country announces an intervention resulting in an above-median increase in board gender diversity and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−4	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for observations four or more years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement; the paper labels the endpoint t−4 while describing coverage of each of the five years before treatment.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; main tests turn treatment on at the announcement date of the earliest intervention in countries with multiple interventions.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−3	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for three years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Intervention Resulting in Below-Median BGD Increase	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 after the firm-year country announces an intervention resulting in a below-median increase in board gender diversity and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Weak Enforcement Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after a country announces a weakly enforced mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise; weak enforcement includes no penalties, rewards for compliance, or restrictions on replacing incumbents.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont−2	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for two years before the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+5	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for five or more years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for the board gender diversity intervention announcement year.
baik_et_al_2024	Mandatory Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after the firm-year country announces a mandatory board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+1	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for one year after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+2	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for two years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Voluntary Intervention	country \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 in years after the firm-year country announces a voluntary board gender diversity intervention and 0 otherwise.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+3	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for three years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
baik_et_al_2024	Interventiont+4	country \| binary \| none	Event-time indicator for four years after the board gender diversity intervention announcement.
Sub-construct: gender_diversity_policy
Quantity: firm gender-diversity policy / environment (5 measures)
Definition: firm-disclosed board gender-diversity policy or target (4 measures)
hu_et_al_2025	Target_Post	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a firm discloses adoption of targets for women’s representation on the board in a year and zero if it discloses no adoption; also set to zero for preregulation treatment observations and EB U.S. firms.	level coded board but the fact is a firm disclosure of a policy; entity overridden to firm; content is the policy, not anyone's gender
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Diversity & opportunity targets	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the company has diversity and equal-opportunity targets or objectives, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Firm has diversity policy on gender or race	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the firm's proxy statement says the board considers race and/or gender when selecting director nominees; generic diversity language without explicit gender, race, or ethnicity does not qualify.
hu_et_al_2025	Consider_Post	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a firm discloses that women’s representation is considered in director identification and selection in a year and zero if it discloses no such consideration; also set to zero for preregulation treatment observations and EB U.S. firms.
Definition: KLD-rated diversity strengths score (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	Diversity strengths	firm \| count \| none	Total KLD strength score across diversity-dimension strength items, excluding the board-diversity strength item so that board diversity is not counted twice.	KLD diversity strengths; gender one input among several policy items; content is firm practice
Sub-construct: diversity_salience
Quantity: experimental diversity-salience context (1 measure)
Definition: experimental diversity-salience framing manipulation (1 measure)
solal_snellman_2019	diversity was made salient	event \| binary \| none	Experimental framing manipulation that included versus excluded explicit references to diversity in the board-appointment description.	content is diversity salience of the vignette, not anyone's gender; distinct sub-construct

Expertise: 241 measures, 65 papers

Lower bound (mechanical; no text is read): raw count 32 forms, effective number 8.4; 26% of measures use the modal form (director-level binary, no named procedure).
LLM draft classification (reads the operationalization text): 29 sub-constructs; 20 quantities; raw count 77 definition groups, effective number 42.7; 5 records indeterminate.

How the lower bound arises: every occupied form cell

Level	Resolution	Named procedure	Measures
director	binary	none	62
board	share	none	42
board	count	none	18
director	count	none	15
board	continuous	none	13
board	continuous	concentration_index	11
director	continuous	none	10
ceo	binary	none	10
board	binary	none	8
firm	count	none	6
firm	share	none	5
board	continuous	latent_weighting	5
committee	count	none	4
firm	binary	none	4
tmt	binary	none	4
director	continuous	latent_weighting	4
board	continuous	pairwise_comparison	3
tmt	share	none	2
ceo	continuous	none	2
other	share	none	1
director	share	none	1
committee	binary	none	1
chair	binary	none	1
committee	share	none	1
chair	continuous	latent_weighting	1
tmt	continuous	none	1
region	binary	none	1
board	share	pairwise_comparison	1
tmt	continuous	concentration_index	1
board	continuous	faultline_algorithm	1
industry	continuous	none	1
event	binary	none	1

The effective number is the inverse Simpson index of these cell shares: 1 / Σ p_i².

All records, grouped by the LLM draft classification

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Sub-construct: financial/accounting expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (15 measures)
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (8 measures)
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board financial expertise	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if at least one director on the board is a financial expert, defined as having accounting- or finance-related education or expertise, and zero otherwise.
huang_et_al_2025	Financial Experts on Intermediary Boards	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the presence of BoardEx-classified financial experts on any intermediary firm's board.	Population is intermediary firms' boards, not the focal board.; Any-member dummy; population is intermediary firms' boards, not the focal board.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors categorized from their primary employment background as having finance-sector expertise.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors not on the CDC	board \| count \| none	Number of board directors classified as possessing finance skills who did not serve on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors serving on the board in a year whose proxy-statement biography or nomination rationale contained a predefined finance-skill keyword or phrase.	Proxy-bio keyword classifier treated as finance-background biography classifier.
chen_et_al_2020	Finance experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with CFO or treasurer titles or work in banking, finance, or investment firms before the current directorship divided by all directors.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with finance expertise divided by total board size.
sun_et_al_2016	Board Acc/Fin Ratio	board \| share \| none	Percentage of independent directors who have accounting and financial expertise.	Underlying acc/fin classifier unspecified; placed in broad career-background group.
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (4 measures)
chychyla_et_al_2019	HighBoardRatioAcc	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when BoardRatioAcc is in the third tercile.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Join Acc	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if an accounting expert joined the board during the year, and 0 otherwise.	Appointment flow of the stock accounting-expert classifier; grouped with it.; Appointment-flow dummy (an expert joined this year); treated as composition of board membership.
chychyla_et_al_2019	BoardNumAcc	board \| count \| none	Number of accounting experts on the board. An expert has a CPA or similar certification or has worked as an auditor, tax professional, financial controller, treasurer, or CFO.
chychyla_et_al_2019	BoardRatioAcc	board \| share \| none	BoardNumAcc divided by BoardSize.
Definition: Firm-designated (SOX/audit-committee) financial expert (2 measures)
armstrong_et_al_2015	Log NumFinExp	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of financial experts designated on the board of directors in the year preceding the fiscal year.
van_peteghem_et_al_2018	PCTFINEXP	board \| share \| none	Number of board members qualifying as financial experts under SOX divided by total board members.
Definition: Employment or board seat at a financial institution (1 measure)
huang_et_al_2025	Bankers on Intermediary Boards	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for the presence of bankers on any intermediary firm's board; bankers are directors who also serve on a commercial bank board identified with the Schwert lender link table.	Banker defined by commercial-bank board seat, on intermediary boards.; Any-member dummy on intermediary boards.
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (11 measures)
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (5 measures)
donelson_et_al_2025	CPA	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is a certified public accountant or equivalent, and zero otherwise.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Acc	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if an outside director has work experience as a certified public accountant, chief financial officer, vice president of finance, financial controller, or another major accounting position.
jiang_et_al_2016	Accountant	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is an accounting professional.
kang_et_al_2022	Accountant (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is an accountant and 0 otherwise.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Director had financial skills	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director was a chartered financial analyst or certified public accountant, or was currently or previously employed as a chief financial officer at another firm.	CFA/CPA certification or CFO career; grouped with accounting certification/career.
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (3 measures)
benton_2021	Finance background	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, by year t, the director had been listed as a CFO in Execucomp or had ever been affiliated with a financial institution listed in BoardEx, including investment or commercial banks, private equity funds, investment funds, or other financial institutions.
chen_et_al_2020	Director with finance experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if before appointment the director held a CFO or treasurer title or worked in banking, finance, or investment firms, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Finance experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports that the director has finance experience.
Definition: Firm-designated (SOX/audit-committee) financial expert (2 measures)
gow_et_al_2018	Financial Expert	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the reporting firm classifies the director as a financial expert, and 0 otherwise.
krause_et_al_2017	Financial Expertise	director \| binary \| none	Indicator reflecting the board's designation of the outside director as a financial expert.
Definition: Employment or board seat at a financial institution (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2016	Banking	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is employed by a financial institution.
Quantity: committee composition of experts (4 measures)
Definition: Accounting career or CPA-type certification (auditor, controller, CFO) (3 measures)
chychyla_et_al_2019	HighACRatioAcc	committee \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when ACRatioAcc is in the third tercile.
chychyla_et_al_2019	ACNumAcc	committee \| count \| none	Number of audit committee accounting experts. An expert has a CPA or similar certification or has worked as an auditor, tax expert, financial controller, treasurer, or CFO.
chychyla_et_al_2019	ACRatioAcc	committee \| share \| none	ACNumAcc divided by ACSize.
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance directors on the CDC	committee \| count \| none	Number of directors classified as possessing finance skills who served on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Financial	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is or was a CFO, treasurer, banker, accountant, auditor, or securities broker; works or worked in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking; or majored in finance or accounting.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Previously held a CFO position (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	CFO Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the appointee has CFO experience and 0 otherwise.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Quantity: expertise of the firm's regulatory environment (2 measures)
Definition: SEC regional-office leaders/staff with finance or accounting careers (2 measures)
blann_2026	FinExperience	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a company overseen, based on its headquarters location, by an SEC regional office led by a regional director with prior professional experience at a financial firm, at an accounting firm, or in an accounting- or finance-related corporate role; zero otherwise.	Expertise of the SEC regional office overseeing the firm: an attribute of the firm's regulatory environment, not of its people.
blann_2026	NonFinExperience	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a company overseen by an SEC office formerly led by a regional director with financial experience but currently led by a regional director without financial experience, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; Flags loss of finance-experienced leadership; inverted.; Expertise of the SEC regional office overseeing the firm: an attribute of the firm's regulatory environment, not of its people.
Quantity: regional regulatory-environment expertise (2 measures)
Definition: SEC regional-office leaders/staff with finance or accounting careers (2 measures)
blann_2026	StaffFinExperience	other \| share \| none	Percentage of lower-level staff in a regional office-year, among employees with located LinkedIn profiles, who had worked for a financial or accounting firm or in a financial or accounting role elsewhere.	Level coded other; share of SEC regional-office staff with finance backgrounds functions as a regulatory-environment attribute. Entity region (outside the listed set; the natural entity, the regulator's office, is not listed).
blann_2026	FinExperienceRegion	region \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a region overseen by an SEC office led by a regional director with financial experience, and zero otherwise.	Regulatory-environment attribute; entity region kept from the coded level (outside the listed entity set).
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Finance/accounting career or education background from biography (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO accounting	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the CEO's dominant functional background is accounting and finance and 0 otherwise.	CEO's dominant accounting/finance functional background; broad finance-background classifier.
Definition: Previously held a CFO position (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Finance CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the CEO previously held a chief financial officer position and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: executive/leadership experience
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (14 measures)
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (5 measures)
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Current executive indicator	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is currently a senior executive of another company, such as CFO, treasurer, or president, and zero otherwise.
frankort_et_al_2026	Work role	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if the director has a non-board work role in year t and 0 otherwise; such roles are almost exclusively senior and executive positions in this population.
jiang_et_al_2016	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director's primary employer is another nonfinancial firm and the director does not hold a CEO or chairman position.
krause_et_al_2017	Business Expert	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that an outside director's primary employment title is executive, such as CEO, COO, CFO, president, or vice-president, at another for-profit firm.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Top executive at another firm	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director was employed as a top executive at another firm in the year the financial fraud was initially revealed.
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	CEO Position	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the executive holds a CEO position at any public firm and 0 otherwise.
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Current CEO indicator	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is currently CEO of another company and zero otherwise.
jiang_et_al_2016	CEOChair	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the focal independent director is the CEO or chairman of another company.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	CEO Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the individual held a CEO position at a public firm and 0 otherwise.
chang_wu_2021	Past CEO	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director has ever held a CEO position.
gormley_et_al_2023	CEO experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director had experience as CEO of a public or private company in a prior fiscal year.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (3 measures)
benton_2021	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director has held a C-level executive position in a public corporation, constructed by matching ISS board rosters to Execucomp and flagging listed C-level executives.
chen_et_al_2020	Director with executive experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if before appointment the director held any listed executive role, including CEO, CFO, CIO, COO, president, vice president, partner, managing director, or treasurer, and zero otherwise.
field_et_al_2020	Management experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports management experience.
Quantity: board composition of experts (10 measures)
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (5 measures)
jung_et_al_2023	CEO-directors	board \| count \| none	Number of focal-board directors who are CEOs of another company, entered in regressions as its natural logarithm.
krause_et_al_2017	Outside Directors Who Are Current CEOs	board \| count \| none	Count of outside board members whose current title is CEO at another for-profit firm.
zhu_chen_2014	Number of CEO-directors appointed by the focal firm in the previous three years	board \| count \| none	Count of CEO-directors appointed to the focal firm’s board during the preceding three years.	Three-year appointment flow of the current-CEO-director classifier.
baer_et_al_2023	% Current CEO Directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who currently serve as CEO of a public firm.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	% CEO directors	board \| share \| none	Number of directors who are current CEOs divided by total directors.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (3 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	% Former CEO Directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who formerly served as CEO of a public firm.
gormley_et_al_2023	Share of directors with CEO experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with prior CEO experience divided by total directors on the board.
you_et_al_2023	Proportion of directors with CEO experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with CEO experience at other firms divided by the total number of directors.
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (1 measure)
huang_hilary_2018	% Outside Executives	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors who work as executives.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Executive experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with specified executive experience before the current directorship divided by all directors.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (5 measures)
Definition: Currently CEO of another firm (2 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	Appointed director (candidate) is a CEO (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the appointee or candidate is CEO of a public firm.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s Fortune CEO status	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the new director was a Fortune CEO and zero otherwise.	Fortune-list CEO status variant of current-CEO classifier.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Prior CEO experience (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	CEO experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate has CEO experience.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Currently a senior executive (primary employment title) (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Keyexec	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if, at nomination, the independent-director nominee is a key executive holding an equivalent of CEO, president, chairman, CFO, CIO, COO, VP, executive VP, senior VP, managing partner, managing director, treasurer, or another chief-officer title.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Board candidate's top management experience	director \| continuous \| none	Potential candidate's top management experience; the paper does not state whether this is years, positions, or another quantity.	Quantity units unstated, but top-management classifier is clear.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Quantity: an executive's own expertise status (4 measures)
Definition: Specific C-suite title held by focal executive (4 measures)
boivie_et_al_2016	COO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was chief operating officer.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	President	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive held the title of president.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	CFO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was chief financial officer.	CFO title grouped with parallel executive-title indicators, not financial expertise.; Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
boivie_et_al_2016	Subsidiary CEO	tmt \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the focal executive was CEO of a subsidiary of the focal firm.	Binary title indicator for one focal executive; an attribute of one TMT member.
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (3 measures)
Definition: Prior CEO experience (2 measures)
garg_et_al_2018	Repeat CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Dummy indicating whether the focal CEO had previously been a CEO.
zhu_shen_2016	Prior experience as a CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the incoming outside CEO had previously been a CEO and 0 otherwise.
Definition: Prior senior-executive or management career experience (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	CEO GM experience	ceo \| continuous \| none	Number of years of experience the inventor CEO accumulated in the general-management function before becoming CEO.	Years in general-management function merged with prior-executive experience.
Quantity: board expertise matched against another profile (1 measure)
Definition: CEO-director prevalence on directors' other boards (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	Average proportion of CEO-directors on other boards served by focal directors in the previous three years	board \| share \| none	Average proportion of CEO-directors on other boards on which focal-board directors served during the previous three years.	Reference set is other boards served, not the focal board; kept separate.; Prevalence of CEO-directors on focal directors' OTHER boards: a network-exposure quantity defined against tied boards, not focal-board composition.
Sub-construct: expertise diversity
Quantity: board expertise heterogeneity (15 measures)
Definition: Dispersion of directors' industry backgrounds (Blau/HHI/cosine) (5 measures)
harrison_et_al_2024	Board industry diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau index, 1 minus the sum of squared proportions, calculated across non-executive directors' primary industry backgrounds. Each director's primary industry is the two-digit GIC industry in which the director accumulated the most years of experience before t.
hsu_et_al_2025	HHI sector	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl-Hirschman index across directors' sector-experience categories.	inverted polarity; HHI measures concentration; inverted relative to diversity orientation.
kang_et_al_2022	Board Experience Dispersion	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	One minus the sum of squared industry-experience shares for the board in a year; each industry share is the tenure-weighted number of incumbent outside directors with board experience in that industry divided by the total number of industries in which incumbent outside directors served on a board.
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in Blau diversity of directors’ primary one-digit-SIC industry backgrounds, defined by the industry with most years of top-executive experience.	First difference across CEO-succession boards, same industry-Blau definition.; Temporal difference of a multi-category Blau; the underlying quantity is heterogeneity.
jung_et_al_2023	Industry experience diversity	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Each director is represented by a binary vector indicating whether the director holds a directorship in each major SIC industry division. Cosine similarity is calculated for every pair of directors on the focal board, the pairwise similarities are averaged, and the average is reverse-coded. The resulting board measure ranges from zero to one, with higher values indicating greater diversity.	Pairwise-cosine procedure merged with Blau/HHI per ignore-procedure rule.; Pairwise-cosine procedure, but averaged over all board pairs it measures board-wide mixture, not a focal actor's position; heterogeneity rather than relational.
Definition: Dispersion across skill or professional-background categories (4 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Blau score	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Board-level Blau index calculated as one minus the sum across skill categories of the squared proportion of all director-skill instances in each category; the theoretical maximum is 19/20.
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Professional diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau's diversity index calculated from directors' distributions across 11 professional-background categories.
hsu_et_al_2025	HHI skill	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl-Hirschman index across directors' manually classified skill categories.	inverted polarity; HHI measures concentration; inverted relative to diversity orientation.
acharya_pollock_2021	Expertise Overlap	board \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Average over all director pairs of a binary comparison equal to 1 when the two directors were assigned the same primary-expertise category and 0 otherwise. The five categories were business experts, support specialists, community influentials, private equity managers, and venture capitalists.	inverted polarity; Pairwise same-category overlap over Hillman-style categories; inverted vs diversity.; Mean same-category share over five categories equals an HHI over a multi-category system; heterogeneity despite pairwise construction.
Definition: Count of distinct expertise areas represented (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Number of skills	board \| count \| none	Count of the 20 skill categories represented by at least one director on the board.	Variety count of distinct categories present (of 20) measures mixture breadth, not member prevalence; classed as heterogeneity.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board skill diversity	board \| count \| none	Number of unique director skills present on the board each year, based on the 20-category proxy-statement skill dictionary.	Variety count of distinct categories present (of 20) measures mixture breadth, not member prevalence; classed as heterogeneity.
Definition: Dispersion of functional-experience categories (2 measures)
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board diversity	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Focal-minus-prior-board change in Blau diversity across throughput, output, and peripheral functional expertise categories.	Temporal difference of a multi-category Blau; the underlying quantity is heterogeneity.
jung_et_al_2023	Functional experience diversity	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Each director is represented by a vector whose seven entries count job titles in sales, support, manufacturing and operations, research and development, finance, founding, and CEO experience. Cosine similarity is calculated for every director pair on the board, averaged over all pairs, and reverse-coded.	Pairwise-cosine procedure, but averaged over all board pairs it measures board-wide mixture, not a focal actor's position; heterogeneity rather than relational.
Definition: Sum of standardized industry, functional, board diversity (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Expertise diversity	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Composite board-level measure obtained by standardizing Industry experience diversity, Functional experience diversity, and Board experience diversity as z-scores and summing the three standardized scores.
Definition: ASW faultline over human capital and committee memberships (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	Alignment: human capital and committees	board \| continuous \| faultline_algorithm	ASW faultline strength based on dominant functional experience, educational background, outsider status, and membership in audit, compensation, and nomination committees. The same algorithm as the main faultline measure is used; values range from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating stronger alignment.	Multi-attribute faultline alignment treated as within-board heterogeneity/configuration.
Quantity: board composition of experts (4 measures)
Definition: Latent factor of board skill indicators (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Factor 1	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	First unrotated factor extracted by the iterated principal factor method from the 18 varying board-level skill indicators.	Latent factor over 18 board-level any-member skill dummies: a composite of composition indicators, not heterogeneity.
adams_et_al_2018	Factor 1	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	First unrotated factor extracted by maximum-likelihood factor analysis from the 18 varying board-level skill indicators; Finance and accounting and Company business are excluded because they have no variation.	Latent factor over 18 board-level any-member skill dummies: a composite of composition indicators, not heterogeneity.
Definition: Dispersion across skill or professional-background categories (1 measure)
adams_et_al_2018	Inside-outside Blau score	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Blau concentration index formed after combining all insider skills into one insider group and all outsider skills into one outsider group, treating the two groups as individuals in the Blau formula.	Insider/outsider regrouping variant of the skill-category Blau.; Blau over two categories (insider/outsider) is a deterministic function of the insider share; composition per the binary rule.
Definition: Concentration of financial-expertise status (1 measure)
bernile_et_al_2018	HHI financial expert	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	Herfindahl index formed from the board shares classified as having or not having financial expertise.	HHI over a binary attribute (financial expert or not) is a function of the share; composition per the binary rule.
Quantity: CEO expertise overlap with directors (1 measure)
Definition: CEO-director dyadic functional-experience overlap (1 measure)
mendiratta_tasheva_2025	CEO function overlap	board \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	Average dyadic overlap in personal range of functional experiences across all possible dyads of the CEO and demographic minority directors. Personal range includes all current and past functional experiences over each person's career.	Level coded board, but the quantity is the CEO's functional-experience overlap with (minority) directors; relational, entity CEO.
Quantity: TMT expertise heterogeneity (1 measure)
Definition: Dispersion of directors' industry backgrounds (Blau/HHI/cosine) (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	TMT industry diversity	tmt \| continuous \| concentration_index	Industry diversity of non-CEO executives at or above Executive Vice President or Senior Vice President, calculated in the same way as board industry diversity using executives' complete employment histories and primary two-digit GIC industry backgrounds.
Quantity: a candidate's expertise relative to incumbents or the firm (1 measure)
Definition: Incumbent-candidate background similarity index (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Demographic similarity beyond gender	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	A discrete-principal-components index combining incumbent-candidate same-category indicators for functional background, age, race, highest degree earned, and possession of an elite Ivy League degree; age similarity equals one when the individuals differ by less than one standard deviation.	Incumbent-candidate similarity index; relational, entity appointee.
Quantity: chair expertise distance from other directors (1 measure)
Definition: Committee-chair versus other-director expertise dissimilarity composite (1 measure)
jung_et_al_2023	Expertise minority chairs	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For compensation-, audit-, and nomination-committee chairs, the authors retain chair–nonchair director pairs and calculate mean cosine similarity in industry experience and functional experience, reverse-code both similarities, and calculate the absolute difference between chairs’ and nonchairs’ mean outside-directorship counts. The three scores are standardized as z-scores and added.	Level coded board, but the quantity is committee chairs' expertise distance from non-chair directors; relational, entity chair.
Quantity: committee expertise heterogeneity (1 measure)
Definition: Count of distinct expertise areas represented (1 measure)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Nominating committee expertise	committee \| count \| none	Sum of the distinct expertise areas present on the nominating committee.	Committee-level count of distinct expertise areas; level ignored per rules.; Variety count of distinct expertise areas present; mixture breadth, classed as heterogeneity.
Sub-construct: general human capital composite
Quantity: composition of a firm-level group (recruit cohorts, founders, inventors) (8 measures)
Definition: Ten-indicator nominee quality index, with exposure interactions (5 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Quality improvement	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s one-period-lagged pre-to-post change in the firm-year sum of Qindex × Unexposed is in the top tercile of its sample distribution.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	firm \| count \| none	Sum within a firm-year of Qindex values for all newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Unexposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Qindex × Unexposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year aggregation of Qindex for voluntarily departing independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Exposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Qindex × Exposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
Definition: Five-indicator nominee experience index, with exposure interactions (3 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Quality improvement	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm’s one-period-lagged pre-to-post change in the firm-year sum of Experience × Unexposed is in the top tercile of its sample distribution.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience × Unexposed	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of Experience × Unexposed across newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience	firm \| count \| none	Firm-year sum of the Experience index for newly recruited independent directors.	Firm-year aggregate over the cohort of newly recruited (or departing) independent directors; composition of that cohort.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (7 measures)
Definition: Ten-indicator nominee quality index, with exposure interactions (3 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Exposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Qindex and Exposed, setting the quality value to zero for unexposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex	director \| count \| none	Simple sum of ten binary quality indicators for an independent-director nominee: Keyexec, HP_firm, S&P 1500, Patents, Multiple_seats, Degree, MBA, Financial, Legal, and Industry.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
masulis_et_al_2024	Qindex × Unexposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Qindex and Unexposed, setting the quality value to zero for exposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
Definition: Five-indicator nominee experience index, with exposure interactions (2 measures)
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience × Unexposed	director \| count \| none	Product of director-level Experience and Unexposed, setting experience quality to zero for exposed nominees.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee. Interaction with exposure status gates, but does not change, the nominee-quality quantity.
masulis_et_al_2024	Experience	director \| count \| none	Simple sum of Keyexec, S&P 1500, HP_firm, Patents, and Multiple_seats for an independent-director nominee.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Definition: Standardized composite: executive, director, government, professional-organization years (2 measures)
jiang_et_al_2021	CHC²	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Squared term of Candidate human capital (CHC).	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
jiang_et_al_2021	Candidate human capital (CHC)	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Average of standardized values of cumulative years of top-executive experience, cumulative years of director experience, cumulative government experience, and cumulative professional-organization experience.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Quantity: board composition of experts (2 measures)
Definition: Factor score of tenure and directorship human-capital proxies (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2016	Average Board Human Capital	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For each board-year, the authors calculated the mean across all directors other than the chair for each of the six proxy measures and applied the chair-level factor-scoring coefficients to those means to produce a board human-capital score.	Factor-weighted mean of member human-capital proxies: a group aggregate of member attributes (composition).
Definition: Count of declining board-average career-breadth dimensions (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	Decrease in Board Skill	board \| count \| none	Sum of five indicators, each identifying a decrease from t-2 to t-1 in a board-member average for # Positions, CEO Experience, # Firms, # Industries, or Conglomerate Experience, where t is appointment year.	Sum of decline indicators in board-mean attributes; a change composite of member-average attributes (composition).
Quantity: TMT composition of experts (1 measure)
Definition: Standardized composite: executive, director, government, professional-organization years (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2021	Upper-echelon human capital	tmt \| continuous \| none	For year t, sum of the human capital of all executives and directors disclosed in the declining firm’s annual report for year t−1.	Sums human capital across executives AND directors; a group aggregate spanning TMT and board, kept at tmt per the coded level.
Quantity: the chair's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Factor score of tenure and directorship human-capital proxies (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2016	Chair Human Capital	chair \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Factor score for the human-capital factor retained from a principal-axis exploratory factor analysis of six chair-level proxies: years serving on the focal board, years working at the focal firm, total nonfocal boards served on to date, nonfocal boards served on in the focal year, same-four-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year, and same-two-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year. Factors with eigenvalues of at least one were retained.
Sub-construct: industry expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (13 measures)
Definition: Career or biography experience in focal firm's industry (4 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors whose proxy biography indicates experience in the same three-digit SIC industry as the focal firm or another background clearly related to its line of business, including related nonprofit experience.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert/Total	board \| share \| none	Number of outside expert directors divided by total board size.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
oehmichen_et_al_2017	Industry expertise	board \| share \| none	Proportion of the focal board’s nonexecutive directors whose experience value is at least three, where experience values reflect the maximum consecutive SIC-digit match between the focal firm and positions held during the prior four years.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
schabus_2022	%DIR_P_IND_EXP	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors with experience from prior appointments as executives or directors in the same industry.	The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
Definition: Years of directorships at other focal-industry firms (3 measures)
donelson_et_al_2025	NonCILAvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which non-competitor-interlocked directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the number of non-competitor-interlocked directors.
donelson_et_al_2025	CILAvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which competitor-interlocked directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the number of competitor-interlocked directors.
donelson_et_al_2025	AvgExp	board \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years in the focal three-digit NAICS industry for which the firm's independent directors served or currently serve on boards other than the focal firm, divided by the total number of independent directors.
Definition: Drug-introduction market experience via board interlocks, depreciated window (2 measures)
diestre_et_al_2015	Directors’ experience from past interlocks	board \| continuous \| none	Experience directors obtained on other boards through interlocks that were no longer active in year t, calculated using the same market-specific drug-introduction, board aggregation, three-year-window, and depreciation procedure as current interlocking directors’ experience.
diestre_et_al_2015	Interlocking directors’ experience	board \| continuous \| none	For each focal-firm director and therapeutic market, the authors counted new drugs introduced in that market by interlocking firms on whose boards the director also served, summed experience across all directors on the focal board, and accumulated it over the most recent three-year window with a 40 percent depreciation factor.
Definition: Outside directors without focal-industry expertise (finance/law/other aggregate) (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Finance/Law/Other	board \| count \| none	Aggregate number of outside directors categorized as having finance, law, or other expertise rather than focal-industry expertise.
denis_et_al_2015	Finance/Law/Other	board \| share \| none	Aggregate number of outside directors with finance, law, or other expertise divided by total board size.
Definition: Prior senior banking career, on bank boards (1 measure)
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of banking experts	board \| share \| none	The proportion of directors at the start of year t whose biographies indicated banking experience before joining the board; such experience generally appeared only when the director had previously reached at least Executive Vice President rank in a bank.	Banking career on bank boards; paper claims focal-domain (industry) expertise, not financial expertise.
Definition: Outside industry experts over total-experts denominator (1 measure)
denis_et_al_2015	Outside expert/Total expert	board \| share \| none	Number of outside expert directors divided by total experts, where total experts equal inside directors plus outside expert directors.	Denominator is total experts, not board size; kept as separate definition.
Quantity: a director's expertise relative to the firm or fellow directors (4 measures)
Definition: Career or biography experience in focal firm's industry (1 measure)
kang_et_al_2022	Director Experience Diversity (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if an outside director's industry experience differs from the focal firm's industry and 0 otherwise.	inverted polarity; Codes industry experience DIFFERENT from focal firm; inverted same-industry classifier.; Mismatch of the director's industry experience with the focal firm's industry; defined against the firm.
Definition: Years of directorships at other focal-industry firms (1 measure)
donelson_et_al_2025	Exp	director \| continuous \| none	Cumulative firm-years for which the director served as an independent director at another firm in the focal firm's three-digit NAICS industry, excluding experience at the focal firm.	Coded relative_to=none, but the experience domain is pinned to the focal firm's industry; a same-industry match quantity, kept consistent with its other-industry complement.
Definition: Drug-introduction market experience via board interlocks, depreciated window (1 measure)
diestre_et_al_2015	Potential director’s experience	director \| continuous \| none	For each potential director, the authors counted new drugs introduced in each therapeutic market by every pharmaceutical firm on whose board the director served, summed this experience across markets the focal firm was considering entering, and accumulated it over the most recent three-year window with a 40 percent depreciation factor.	Experience counted only in markets the focal firm is considering entering; an overlap-weighted fit quantity.
Definition: Experience in industries outside the focal firm's (1 measure)
field_et_al_2020	Other industry experience	director \| continuous \| none	Number of years the director served on boards outside the focal firm's industry.	Years outside the focal firm's industry; defined by difference from the firm.
Quantity: a candidate's expertise relative to incumbents or the firm (1 measure)
Definition: Experience in industries outside the focal firm's (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Different industry from firm (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the candidate’s portfolio of industries in which she serves as director or executive includes a BoardEx sector outside the appointing firm’s industry.	Candidate's industry portfolio compared with the appointing firm's industry; relational, entity appointee.
Sub-construct: international expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (13 measures)
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (6 measures)
chen_et_al_2020	China-director domiciled in foreign countries	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with China experience who reside in foreign countries divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	Executive China-director	board \| share \| none	Number of inside directors with China experience divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director	board \| share \| none	Ratio of outside directors with China experience to all directors on the board. China experience requires prior work in China or service in specified leadership or management roles in a Chinese division of a domestic or foreign firm, before the first year of the focal directorship.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director with recent work experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors whose China experience was obtained from year −7 through year −1 relative to appointment year 0, divided by total directors.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director domiciled in the U.S.	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with China experience who reside in the U.S. divided by total directors on the board.
chen_et_al_2020	China-director with early work experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors whose China experience was obtained before year −7 relative to appointment year 0, divided by total directors.
Definition: Chinese returnee directors' overseas study or work (5 measures)
luo_et_al_2021	Average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| continuous \| none	Average length abroad among returnee directors from high-donation countries for firms with such directors; coded zero for firms without such directors.
luo_et_al_2021	Square of average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| continuous \| none	Squared value of average overseas duration of returnee directors from high-donation countries.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors	board \| share \| none	Number of the firm’s Chinese directors who studied or worked outside mainland China divided by total directors.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors from high-donation countries	board \| share \| none	Number of Chinese returnee directors associated with foreign countries whose World Giving Index score is above the median of sample countries, divided by total board members. Multiple-country returnees are classified using their average country score.
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors from low-donation countries	board \| share \| none	Number of Chinese returnee directors associated with foreign countries whose World Giving Index score is at or below the median of sample countries, divided by total board members.
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (2 measures)
chen_et_al_2020	Foreign experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors who studied abroad or worked in non-U.S. firms before the current directorship divided by all directors.
giannetti_et_al_2015	Foreign Experience	board \| share \| none	Number of directors with foreign work experience, foreign education, or both divided by total board size.
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Treatment (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One for an outside director with China experience before 2000 and zero for a matched director without China experience throughout the sample period.	Matched treatment variant of the same China-experience classifier.
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Director with foreign experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if the director studied abroad or worked in non-U.S. firms before the appointment year, and zero otherwise.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Prior China work experience, with domicile and timing variants (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	China-director appointment (indicator)	event \| binary \| none	One for a matched treatment firm appointing an outside director with China experience and zero for a matched control firm appointing an outside director without China experience.	Matched appointment variant of the same China-experience classifier.; Level coded event, but the indicator encodes the appointee's China experience in a matched appointment design; entity appointee.
Quantity: the chair's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Foreign work or education experience (1 measure)
xu_et_al_2023	Overseas experience	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the chair has worked or studied in an OECD country and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: firm-specific experience
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (5 measures)
Definition: Incoming CEO's pre-event focal-board membership (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Parent CEOt+1 was not on prior board	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the post-spinoff parent CEO did not serve on the pre-spinoff parent board.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-board service.; Prior membership on the pre-spinoff board read as the CEO's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded overlap.
denis_et_al_2015	Unit CEOt+1 was not on prior board	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator that the post-spinoff unit CEO did not serve on the pre-spinoff parent board.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-board service.; Prior membership on the pre-spinoff board read as the CEO's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded overlap.
Definition: Focal firm's former CEO serving on its board (1 measure)
zorn_et_al_2020	Former CEO on board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the former CEO remains on the focal firm's board.	Level coded board, but the dummy encodes one specific person's (the former CEO's) continued board seat; individual status.
Definition: Years in the focal CEO position (1 measure)
guldiken_et_al_2019	CEO tenure	ceo \| continuous \| none	Number of years the current CEO had held the CEO position.
Definition: New CEO previously an officer of the focal firm (1 measure)
graham_et_al_2020	Outside CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a newly appointed CEO was not a previous officer of the firm, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; Codes absence of prior focal-firm officer role.; Absence of prior employment at the firm read as the CEO's own role history; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (4 measures)
Definition: Employment at the focal firm (insider role) (2 measures)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Insider: Other employee	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the director was employed by the focal firm in a role other than CEO.	Insider employment at the focal firm read as the director's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
wu_2025	Executive	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the DSM is a senior manager or executive director at the focal firm and 0 otherwise; zero identifies supervisory nonexecutive directors in the cross-sectional analysis.	Insider-executive status read as the director's own role history; individual status.
Definition: Focal firm's former CEO serving on its board (1 measure)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Insider: CEO	director \| binary \| none	Binary indicator that the director was employed by the focal firm as its CEO.	Insider employment at the focal firm read as the director's own role history, not a comparison operation; individual status despite coded firm/overlap.
Definition: Years employed within the focal business group (1 measure)
jeong_et_al_2022	Exp. in business group	director \| continuous \| none	Total number of years the director had been employed within the focal business group.	Tenure within the focal business group read as role history; individual status.
Sub-construct: legal expertise
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (4 measures)
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (4 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Legal or consulting experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports legal or consulting experience.	ISS/BoardEx flag combines legal with consulting experience.
ghannam_et_al_2019	Law	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if a director has work experience as a lawyer and/or a law degree such as a J.D., LL.M., or LL.D.
jiang_et_al_2016	Lawyer	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is a legal professional.
kang_et_al_2022	Attorney (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is an attorney and 0 otherwise.
Quantity: board composition of experts (4 measures)
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (4 measures)
ghannam_et_al_2019	Join Law	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if a legal expert joined the board during the year, and 0 otherwise.	Appointment flow of the stock legal-expert classifier; grouped with it.; Appointment-flow dummy; treated as composition of board membership.
connelly_et_al_2021	Legal directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors with legal experience on the board.
denis_et_al_2015	Law	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors categorized from their primary employment background as having legal-sector expertise.
denis_et_al_2015	Law	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors with legal expertise divided by total board size.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Lawyer career or law degree (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Legal	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is or was an attorney, legal counsel, or lawyer, or majored in law.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Sub-construct: entrepreneurial expertise
Quantity: composition of a firm-level group (recruit cohorts, founders, inventors) (3 measures)
Definition: Founders' prior startup founding or employment (3 measures)
marx_et_al_2025	P(startup experience)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who previously worked at a startup as either a founder or an employee.	Includes startup employment, not only founding; grouped with founding measures.; Prevalence among the founding team.
marx_et_al_2025	P(serial founder)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who are serial entrepreneurs, meaning they previously founded a startup.	Prevalence among the founding team.
marx_et_al_2025	P(serial founder VC-backed)	firm \| share \| none	Proportion of the startup’s founders who previously founded a venture-backed startup.	Prevalence among the founding team.
Quantity: board composition of experts (2 measures)
Definition: Entrepreneurial-skill keywords in proxy biography (2 measures)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors serving on the board in a year whose proxy-statement biography or nomination rationale contained a predefined entrepreneurial-skill keyword or phrase.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors not on the CDC	board \| count \| none	Number of board directors classified as possessing entrepreneurial skills who did not serve on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
Quantity: committee composition of experts (1 measure)
Definition: Entrepreneurial-skill keywords in proxy biography (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial directors on the CDC	committee \| count \| none	Number of directors classified as possessing entrepreneurial skills who served on the corporate development committee in a firm-year.
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Founder or co-founder of the focal firm (1 measure)
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Entrepreneurial CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the CEO was a founder or co-founder of the focal firm and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: experience breadth
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (7 measures)
Definition: Career breadth: counts of industries, firms, positions (5 measures)
baer_et_al_2023	# Industries	director \| count \| none	Number of industries, defined at the two-digit SIC level, in which the individual worked over the individual's career.
baer_et_al_2023	# Firms	director \| count \| none	Number of firms where the individual worked over the individual's career.
baer_et_al_2023	# Positions	director \| count \| none	Number of different positions the individual held over the individual's career at public firms in the BoardEx universe.
ding_et_al_2026	# Prior Exec Dir	director \| count \| none	Number of prior executive-director positions held by director j; the regressions use its natural logarithm.
kang_et_al_2022	Director Experience	director \| count \| none	Number of industries in which the director served on a board.
Definition: Number of coded skills per director (2 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Director skills	director \| count \| none	Number of the 20 coded skill categories assigned to a director from the proxy-statement nomination description.
hsu_et_al_2025	# Skills	director \| count \| none	Number of skills possessed by a director under the authors' manual classification.
Sub-construct: medical/user domain expertise
Quantity: TMT composition of experts (2 measures)
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Executives	tmt \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of the firm's senior executives who were identified as board-certified physicians through the AMA Physician Masterfile.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Executives squared	tmt \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Executives, the yearly percentage of senior executives who were board-certified physicians.
Quantity: board composition of experts (2 measures)
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Board Members squared	board \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Board Members, the yearly percentage of board members who were board-certified physicians.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Board Members	board \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of the firm's board members who were identified as board-certified physicians through the AMA Physician Masterfile.
Quantity: composition of a firm-level group (recruit cohorts, founders, inventors) (2 measures)
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (2 measures)
katila_et_al_2017	User–Inventors	firm \| share \| none	Yearly percentage of inventors listed on the firm's patents who were identified as board-certified physicians by matching patent inventors to the AMA Physician Masterfile.	Prevalence among the firm's patent inventors, an employee group, not the board.
katila_et_al_2017	User–Inventors squared	firm \| share \| none	Squared value of User–Inventors, the yearly percentage of patent inventors who were board-certified physicians.	Prevalence among the firm's patent inventors, an employee group, not the board.
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Board-certified physician (AMA) status across firm roles (1 measure)
katila_et_al_2017	User–CEO	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 when the firm's CEO in a particular year was a board-certified physician and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: organizational-form experience
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (4 measures)
Definition: Years at other family companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fam Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another family company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Years at other lone-founder companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fdr Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another lone-founder company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Years at other regular public companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Pub Exp	director \| continuous \| none	For each director–firm combination, number of years the director had served as an executive or director at another regular public company in the sample; zero when no such experience existed.
Definition: Worked for a multidivision (conglomerate) firm (1 measure)
baer_et_al_2023	Conglomerate Experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the individual worked for a multidivision firm and 0 otherwise.
Quantity: board composition of experts (3 measures)
Definition: Years at other family companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fam Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other family companies in the sample.
Definition: Years at other lone-founder companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Fdr Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other lone-founder companies in the sample.
Definition: Years at other regular public companies (1 measure)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	Pub Exp	board \| continuous \| none	For each firm-year, sum across all outside directors of their years of executive or director experience at other regular public companies in the sample.
Sub-construct: M&A expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (4 measures)
Definition: Board service at acquiring firms, prior five years (4 measures)
masulis_zhang_2019	Acq (distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of distracted acquisition-experienced independent directors divided by the number of acquisition-experienced independent directors; experience uses the specified prior-five-year acquisition criterion.
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-acq (distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of distracted independent directors without the defined prior-five-year acquisition experience divided by the number of independent directors without that experience.	inverted polarity; Measures directors WITHOUT acquisition experience; inverted.
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-Acq (non-distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of non-acquisition-experienced directors who are independent and non-distracted divided by the number of directors without the defined prior-five-year acquisition experience.	inverted polarity; Measures directors WITHOUT acquisition experience; inverted.
masulis_zhang_2019	Acq (non-distracted IDs)	board \| share \| none	Number of acquisition-experienced directors who are independent and non-distracted divided by the number of acquisition-experienced directors. Acquisition experience means serving on the board of a public firm making at least one acquisition worth at least 1% of bidder market value in the prior five years.
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: CEO of a firm with M&A in past year (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Departing director is CEO of another firm with M&As (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Equals one if the departing director is CEO of another firm that experienced M&A during the 12 months before the departure announcement.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Generic M&A experience flag (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	M&A experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate or appointee has M&A experience.	Deal-experience classifier underspecified but stated; kept as own generic group.; Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Sub-construct: skill distinctiveness
Quantity: a director's expertise relative to the firm or fellow directors (3 measures)
Definition: Skills or experiences no other board member possesses (3 measures)
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills dummy	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director has at least one skill that no other director on the board possesses.
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills	director \| count \| none	Count of the director's skills that no other director on the same board possesses.
adams_et_al_2018	Unique skills fraction	director \| share \| none	Ratio of the number of unique skills the director has to the director's total number of skills.
Quantity: a candidate's expertise relative to incumbents or the firm (1 measure)
Definition: Skills or experiences no other board member possesses (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Number of new experiences	director \| count \| none	Sum of 24 indicators, each equal to one when the candidate has an experience that no incumbent director has.	24-experience dictionary vs 20-skill dictionary; same distinctiveness definition.; Candidate's experiences no incumbent director has; uniqueness against incumbents, entity appointee.
Sub-construct: academic expertise
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (3 measures)
Definition: Academic employment or professor status (3 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Academic experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports that the director has academic experience.
jiang_et_al_2016	Academic	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director's primary employer is an academic or educational institution.
kang_et_al_2022	Professor (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the director is a professor and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: expertise-risk alignment
Quantity: board expertise matched against another profile (2 measures)
Definition: Board expertise proportions matched against firm risk domains (2 measures)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Strategic board reconfiguration	board \| continuous \| none	Board misalignment in year 0 minus board misalignment in year 3, where year-3 board expertise remains compared with year-0 risks, measuring improvement in alignment over a three-year window.	Three-year change in the misalignment measure; same definition.; Board expertise mix compared domain-by-domain against the firm's risk profile; a matching quantity, not member prevalence.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Board misalignment	board \| continuous \| none	Sum, across the eight domains, of same-year firm-risk proportion minus board-expertise proportion only where expertise is smaller than risk. Year-0 misalignment uses year-0 expertise and risks; year-3 misalignment compares year-3 expertise with year-0 forward-looking risks.	Board expertise mix compared domain-by-domain against the firm's risk profile; a matching quantity, not member prevalence.
Quantity: industry-environment expertise attribute (1 measure)
Definition: Board expertise proportions matched against firm risk domains (1 measure)
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Industry average misalignment	industry \| continuous \| none	Average board misalignment across firms in the focal firm's two-digit SIC industry.	Industry-average aggregation of the same misalignment measure.; Industry mean of a board-firm alignment measure; an attribute of the industry environment (benchmark), classed context_attribute.
Sub-construct: technology/innovation expertise
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Executive of a firm holding granted patents (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	Patents	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive of a firm with at least one granted patent in the year before nomination.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Quantity: board expertise heterogeneity (1 measure)
Definition: Industry diversity of breakthrough-innovation board interlocks (1 measure)
kraft_et_al_2025	Board expertise	board \| continuous \| concentration_index	A Blau heterogeneity index, 1 minus the sum of squared industry proportions, based on a focal board's director interlocks with other firms that produced breakthrough innovations while the focal director served there. The director must have joined the other board at least one year before the breakthrough innovation and remained for the subsequent year. Interlocks are observed from t−4 through t, grouped into ten distinct three-digit SIC industry categories, and multiple interlocks within an industry are aggregated.
Quantity: the CEO's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: CEO listed as inventor on firm patents (1 measure)
harrison_et_al_2024	Inventor CEO involvement	ceo \| binary \| none	Binary variable equal to 1 when the inventor CEO was listed as an inventor on patents filed by the focal company while serving as CEO and within two years before or after the current year, t − 2 through t + 2; otherwise 0.
Sub-construct: general career experience
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Total career length in years (1 measure)
jeong_et_al_2022	Work experience	director \| continuous \| none	Total number of years the director had been employed in any job.
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Total career length in years (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2021	number of years since they first appeared in an upper echelon	director \| continuous \| none	Elapsed number of years since the candidate first appeared in an upper-echelon position in the public-firm annual-report data.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Sub-construct: high-status firm affiliation
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Executive or director experience at S&P index firms (2 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	S&P 500 experience (1/0)	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the candidate has director or executive experience at an S&P 500 firm.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
masulis_et_al_2024	S&P 1500	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive or director of an S&P 1500 constituent firm at nomination.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Sub-construct: manufacturing expertise
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Prior manufacturing work experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Director with manufacturing experience (indicator)	director \| binary \| none	One if the director worked in manufacturing before the appointment year, and zero otherwise.
Quantity: board composition of experts (1 measure)
Definition: Prior manufacturing work experience (1 measure)
chen_et_al_2020	Manufacturing experience	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors who worked in manufacturing before the current directorship divided by all directors.
Sub-construct: military experience
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Military service (2 measures)
field_et_al_2020	Military experience	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if either ISS or BoardEx reports military experience.
naumovska_et_al_2020	Served in the military	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director served in the military before beginning a corporate career.
Sub-construct: professional background type (Hillman taxonomy)
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (2 measures)
Definition: Community influential: academia, government, medicine background (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Community Influential	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director's primary title includes professor, university administrator, educational consultant, editor, private physician, government official, or politician.
Definition: Support specialist: accounting, banking, law, marketing background (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Support Specialist	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the director has a background in accounting, banking, law, or public affairs/marketing.
Sub-construct: residual other expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (2 measures)
Definition: Residual 'other' expertise category (2 measures)
denis_et_al_2015	Other	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors whose primary experience does not classify them into the unit-related, parent-related, law, or finance categories.
denis_et_al_2015	Other	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors in the other-expertise category divided by total board size.
Sub-construct: bankruptcy/distress experience
Quantity: board composition of experts (1 measure)
Definition: Director interlock to a bankrupt firm post-filing (1 measure)
gopalan_et_al_2021	Interlocked Bankruptcy	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one for a firm sharing at least one director with another firm that files for bankruptcy, during years following that interlocked firm’s bankruptcy filing.	The attribute is a director interlock tie to a bankrupt firm, but the measure is an any-member dummy, so composition.
Sub-construct: employment status
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Retired designation (1 measure)
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	Retired	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is designated retired and zero otherwise.
Sub-construct: government expertise
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Composite of government service, positions, SOE management (1 measure)
zhu_yoshikawa_2016	Director capital	director \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Index formed by standardizing and summing educational background, tenure in government service, number of positions held in government and its agencies, and managerial experience in state-owned enterprises. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68.
Sub-construct: nonprofit leadership
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Nonprofit leadership experience count (1 measure)
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Nonprofit leadership experience	director \| count \| none	Director-level count of nonprofit leadership experience; the paper does not define which positions or organizations qualify.
Sub-construct: performance track record
Quantity: a nominee/appointee's own expertise status (1 measure)
Definition: Executive of above-industry-median ROA firm (1 measure)
masulis_et_al_2024	HP_firm	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the candidate is an executive of a firm whose ROA in the year before nomination is above its Fama-French 30 industry median.	Measured person is a nominee/candidate/appointee, not a sitting director; entity appointee.
Sub-construct: real-estate expertise
Quantity: board composition of experts (1 measure)
Definition: Real-estate ownership or executive background (1 measure)
almandoz_tilcsik_2016	Proportion of real estate experts	board \| share \| none	The proportion of directors whose biographies indicated a background in the real-estate domain, such as ownership or top-executive experience in real-estate development or investment companies.
Sub-construct: unclassifiable
Quantity: board composition of experts (0 measures)
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
jiang_et_al_2021	Outgoing directors’ human capital	board \| continuous \| none	Human capital of directors leaving the declining firm; the paper does not state how multiple outgoing directors are aggregated or whether the candidate human-capital construction is reused.	Aggregation and human-capital construction unstated by the paper.; Aggregation unstated by the paper; treated as an aggregate of outgoing members' attributes.
hsu_et_al_2025	Frac industry experience	board \| share \| none	Fraction of directors on the board possessing industry experience.	Classifier and threshold for 'industry experience' not supplied.; The attribute is a firm-industry match, but the quantity is member prevalence; the firm reference sits inside the attribute definition.
hsu_et_al_2025	Frac exposure to env reg	board \| share \| none	Fraction of directors on the board with exposure to environmental regulations.	Construction of environmental-regulation exposure not supplied.
Quantity: a director's own expertise status (0 measures)
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
hsu_et_al_2025	Exposure to env reg	director \| binary \| none	Director-level indicator or measure of exposure to environmental regulations; detailed construction is not supplied.	Detailed construction not supplied by the paper.
Quantity: a director's expertise relative to the firm or fellow directors (0 measures)
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine definition (5 measures)
hsu_et_al_2025	Industry experience	director \| binary \| none	Director-level indicator for industry experience; the relevant industry and experience threshold are not supplied.	Relevant industry and experience threshold not supplied.; Coded rel=firm/overlap; an industry-match indicator against the focal firm (construction vague).

Independence: 111 measures, 73 papers

Lower bound (mechanical; no text is read): raw count 11 forms, effective number 2.8; 58% of measures use the modal form (board-level share, no named procedure).
LLM draft classification (reads the operationalization text): 7 sub-constructs; raw count 17 definition groups, effective number 3.1; 1 record indeterminate.

The quantity layer is drafted for the gender and expertise pilots only; this construct's listing groups records by sub-construct and definition.

How the lower bound arises: every occupied form cell

Level	Resolution	Named procedure	Measures
board	share	none	64
board	count	none	13
director	binary	none	8
firm	binary	none	6
board	binary	none	6
chair	binary	none	3
period	binary	none	3
board	continuous	none	3
committee	share	none	2
board	continuous	latent_weighting	2
firm	share	none	1

The effective number is the inverse Simpson index of these cell shares: 1 / Σ p_i².

All records, grouped by the LLM draft classification

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Sub-construct: independence (plain)
Definition: Classified-independent directors over board; share, count, or threshold (57 measures)
genin_et_al_2023	Mid_Monitoring	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the board's independent-director share is in the second tercile of its sample distribution.	middle-tercile bin of independent share; non-monotone in independence, kept in base group
genin_et_al_2023	Low_Monitoring	board \| binary \| none	Indicator that the board's independent-director share is in the first tercile of its sample distribution.	inverted polarity; bottom-tercile dummy flags low independence; treated as inverted polarity
huang_hilary_2018	Independent Board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a majority of board directors are classified as independent.
masulis_zhang_2019	Independent board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if more than 50% of directors are independent.
ferreira_et_al_2018	Ratio of independent to nonindependent directors	board \| continuous \| none	Ratio of the number of independent directors to the number of nonindependent directors.	independent-to-nonindependent ratio treated as monotone transform of independent share
connelly_et_al_2021	Independent directors	board \| count \| none	Board independence matching covariate labeled Independent directors; the supplied paper does not state whether it is a count or another measure. The table marks it as logged.	form (count vs share) unstated but classifier ('independent directors') stated; kept rather than unclassifiable
denis_et_al_2015	Outside directors	board \| count \| none	Number of board members who are neither employees nor affiliated directors.	outside defined as neither employee nor affiliated = the standard independence classifier, not mere non-executive
denis_et_al_2015	Inside/Affiliated	board \| count \| none	Number of board members classified as either inside directors or affiliated directors.	inverted polarity; inside-plus-affiliated count is the complement of the independence classifier
ferreira_et_al_2018	Number of nonindependent directors	board \| count \| none	Number of board members classified as nonindependent directors.	inverted polarity; nonindependent count; inverted polarity
ferreira_et_al_2018	Number of independent directors	board \| count \| none	Number of board members classified as independent directors.
jung_et_al_2023	Independent directors	board \| count \| none	Number of independent directors on the board, entered in regressions as its natural logarithm.
kang_kang_2024	Number of outside directors	board \| count \| none	Number of directors without any direct or indirect relationship to the firm, including former employees, interlocks, and family members of a director or executive.	labeled outside but defined by absence of any direct or indirect tie; merged with the independence classifier
adams_et_al_2018	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by board size.
armstrong_et_al_2015	PctIndep	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by total directors sitting on the board in the previous year, described as the percentage or proportion of independent directors.
baer_et_al_2023	% Independent Directors	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by the total number of directors.
benton_2021	Independent directors	board \| share \| none	Ratio of independent directors to total board size.
bonini_et_al_2022	Fraction ID	board \| share \| none	Fraction of board directors classified as independent.
chang_wu_2021	Independent board	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by board size.
chen_et_al_2025	Independent	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by the total number of board directors.
chen_et_al_2025	M_Independent	board \| share \| none	Firm-level average of Independent from 1996 through 2019.	long-run firm mean of the same share; time aggregation treated like level
chychyla_et_al_2019	BoardRatioIndep	board \| share \| none	Fraction of board members classified as independent.
cumming_et_al_2015	Independent Director Ratio	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors on the board classified as independent.
denis_et_al_2015	Outside/Total	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by total board size.	same paper defines outside as neither employee nor affiliated; grouped with independence
denis_et_al_2015	Inside/Affiliated	board \| share \| none	Number of inside or affiliated directors divided by total board size, reported as a percentage of directors.	inverted polarity; inside-plus-affiliated share = 1 minus independence share
di_giuli_laux_2022	Proportion of independents	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by all directors on the focal firm's board.
donelson_et_al_2025	Independence	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
fahlenbrach_et_al_2017	% independent directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors classified by RiskMetrics as independent rather than employee or affiliated directors.
field_et_al_2020	Percent independent directors	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by board size.
friedman_2020	INDDIR	board \| share \| none	Fraction of board seats held by independent directors at the most recent annual meeting preceding the fund reporting date.
guldiken_et_al_2019	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors on the board classified as independent.
guo_masulis_2015	Fraction of independent directors	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by total number of directors on the board.
hasija_et_al_2025	Board Independence	board \| share \| none	Ratio of independent directors to the total number of directors on the board.
hauser_2018	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of directors classified as independent by ISS, classification I, divided by board size.
hu_et_al_2025	Indp. directors	board \| share \| none	Proportion of board directors classified as independent.
jain_et_al_2025	Independent Board%	board \| share \| none	Average over CEO tenure of the proportion of board members whose BoardEx role name contains “Independent.”	CEO-tenure average; BoardEx role-name rule treated as vendor independence classification
jiang_et_al_2016	% Independent	board \| share \| none	Fraction of directors on the board who are independent directors.
krause_et_al_2016	Board Independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of the focal firm’s directors classified as independent.
krause_et_al_2017	Board Independence	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by board size; reverse-coded as 1 minus board independence to represent board dependence in the CEO-power index.	inverted polarity; reverse-coded as 1 minus independence share for CEO-power index
langan_2026	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Proportion of board directors who are independent.
liu_et_al_2020	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board members classified as independent directors by RiskMetrics.
mcdonnell_cobb_2020	Independence	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors on the board who are independent.
mitra_et_al_2021	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of directors classified as independent by ISS, meaning they have no business or employment relationship with the firm, divided by board size.
oliver_et_al_2018	Independent directors percent	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors classified as independent.
park_et_al_2020	% of independent directors	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors on the focal board classified as independent, measured at the misrepresentation announcement.
solal_snellman_2019	Independent directors (%)	board \| share \| none	Fraction or percentage of all board directors classified as independent.
sun_et_al_2016	Board Independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors classified as independent directors.
van_peteghem_et_al_2018	PCTINDEPENDENCE	board \| share \| none	Number of independent board members divided by the total number of board members.
wu_2025	Independent	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
you_et_al_2023	Proportion of independent directors	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by the total number of directors on the board.
zhu_yoshikawa_2016	Independent directorship	board \| share \| none	Percentage of independent directors on the focal board.
zorn_et_al_2020	Independence	board \| share \| none	Proportion of directors classified as independent, meaning noninside and nonaffiliated, among all board directors.	independent defined as noninside and nonaffiliated = standard classifier
adams_et_al_2018	Independent director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the director is classified as independent.	director-level indicator; level ignored
busenbark_et_al_2023	Independent	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director is classified as independent and 0 otherwise.	director-level indicator; level ignored
busenbark_et_al_2023	Dependent	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director is classified as dependent and 0 otherwise.	inverted polarity; 'dependent' classification is the complement of independent
mitra_et_al_2021	Director nonindependence	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the director is nonindependent, such as the CEO or another executive holding a board position, and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; nonindependent dummy; inverted polarity
naumovska_et_al_2020	Inside director at fraudulent firm	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the fraud-tainted director was an inside or affiliated director at the fraudulent firm.	inverted polarity; inside-or-affiliated indicator at the fraud firm; sample context ignored
friedman_2020	Independent Directors FP	firm \| share \| none	Value-weighted average of portfolio firms’ fractions of independent directors, weighted by the fund’s dollar holdings.	fund-level value-weighted aggregation of firm independent shares; aggregation treated as level
Definition: Event-time indicators around switch to majority-independent board (5 measures)
balsmeier_et_al_2017	Independent board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator for a firm after it switches in 2001 or later from a board with a minority of independent members to a majority-independent board; treated firms are additionally required to have an audit committee composed entirely of independent directors.	post-transition level indicator built on the same switch event as the event-time dummies
balsmeier_et_al_2017	Treated firms	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for firms classified as treated because they switch to a majority-independent board in 2001 or later and have a fully independent audit committee.	treated-firm level indicator for the same transition event
balsmeier_et_al_2017	tn−1	period \| binary \| none	Set of event-time indicators for years before the firm switches to an independent board; the converted figures do not preserve the exact individual lead labels or range.
balsmeier_et_al_2017	t0	period \| binary \| none	Indicator for the year in which the firm switches to an independent board; it is the omitted reference category in event-time regressions.
balsmeier_et_al_2017	tn+1	period \| binary \| none	Set of event-time indicators for years after the firm switches to an independent board; the converted figures do not preserve the exact individual lag labels or range.
Definition: Own coding: not current/former officer nor CEO family (3 measures)
graham_et_al_2020	Low independence	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the board independence ratio is in the first quartile of the full-sample distribution.	inverted polarity; bottom-quartile dummy of the paper's own independence ratio; inverted polarity
graham_et_al_2020	Initial independence ratio	board \| share \| none	Board independence ratio for the first available observation of each firm.	first-observed value of the same paper-specific ratio
graham_et_al_2020	Independence ratio	board \| share \| none	Number of independent directors divided by total directors; independent directors are neither current nor previous officers of the firm nor family members of the CEO, with family membership proxied by sharing the CEO’s last name.
Definition: Lacked majority-independent board at 2001 listing-rule adoption (2 measures)
chang_wu_2021	Noncompliant	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if a firm was not compliant in 2001 with the requirement that a majority of directors be independent.	inverted polarity; noncompliance = lack of majority independence at the rule date; inverted polarity
guo_masulis_2015	Treat	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm lacked a majority-independent board at the 2001 year-end and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; noncompliance = lack of majority independence at the rule date; inverted polarity
Definition: Audit-committee members classified independent; share or full-independence dummy (2 measures)
delis_et_al_2017	Independent on audit	committee \| share \| none	Percentage of audit-committee members who are independent non-executive directors.
guo_masulis_2015	TreatAud	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm lacked a fully independent audit committee at the 2001 year-end and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; lacked fully independent audit committee; inverted polarity
Definition: Nomination-committee members classified independent; share or full-independence dummy (2 measures)
kang_kang_2024	Nonindependent nomination committee	committee \| share \| none	Number of executive and gray directors on the nomination committee divided by nomination-committee membership.	inverted polarity; executive-plus-gray share of nomination committee = flipped committee independence
guo_masulis_2015	TreatNom	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm lacked a fully independent nominating committee at the 2001 year-end and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; lacked fully independent nominating committee; inverted polarity
Definition: Fully independent compensation committee at 2001; dummy (1 measure)
guo_masulis_2015	TreatCom	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the firm lacked a fully independent compensation committee at the 2001 year-end and zero otherwise.	inverted polarity; lacked fully independent compensation committee; inverted polarity
Sub-construct: outside/non-executive director
Definition: Outside (non-executive) directors over board; insider measures flipped (24 measures)
boivie_et_al_2016	Inside director count	board \| count \| none	Number of inside directors currently serving on the board of the executive's employing firm.	inverted polarity; inside-director count is complement of outside under two-way taxonomy
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	N Insiders	board \| count \| none	Number of inside directors on the board.	inverted polarity
feldman_montgomery_2013	Total insiders	board \| count \| none	Number of inside directors on the board.	inverted polarity
jeong_et_al_2022	No. of outside directors	board \| count \| none	Number of outside directors serving on the focal firm's board.	Korean statutory 'outside director'; grouped by stated outside classifier
ahn_et_al_2025	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by board size.
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of non-executive directors on the board divided by board size, measured in the survey year.
cai_et_al_2021	Fraction of independent directors	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by board size.	name says independent but operationalization counts outside directors; grouped by operationalization
chen_et_al_2016	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Ratio of outside directors to total directors on the board.	'outside' undefined; grouped as outsider though IRRC's taxonomy may make it independence
chen_et_al_2020	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by total directors on the board.	'outside' undefined; grouped as outsider
delis_et_al_2017	Non-executive directors	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who are non-executive directors.
diestre_et_al_2015	Proportion of outsiders	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by the total number of directors on the focal board.
ghannam_et_al_2019	NED Prcnt	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by the total number of directors and executives on the board.	denominator includes executives on the board; minor denominator variant
gomulya_boeker_2016	Proportion of inside board	board \| share \| none	Proportion of non-CEO board members who are also executives of the focal firm.	inverted polarity; executive share among non-CEO directors; flipped outsider share with modified denominator
jiang_et_al_2021	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors on the declining firm’s board who are outside directors.
kang_et_al_2022	Board Independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of directors on the board who are outside directors.
lel_2024	Board independence_%	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by board size.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Proportion of outside directors on the board.
schabus_2022	%DIR_OUT	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors classified as outside directors.
schnatterly_et_al_2021	Board independence	board \| share \| none	Percentage of outside directors relative to total directors on the board.
von_meyerinck_et_al_2025	% outside directors	board \| share \| none	Number of outside directors divided by board size.
zhu_chen_2015	Outsider ratio	board \| share \| none	Ratio of outside directors on the focal board; the paper does not explicitly state the numerator and denominator.	numerator/denominator unstated but named and used as an outsider ratio
zhu_shen_2016	Insider ratio	board \| share \| none	Pre-succession insider ratio used to predict outside succession; construction is not stated in the supplied text.	inverted polarity; construction unstated; assigned by name as an insider ratio and flipped, rather than unclassifiable
zorn_et_al_2020	Proportion of inside directors	board \| share \| none	Proportion of focal-board directors classified as insiders.	inverted polarity
gormley_et_al_2023	Executive director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the newly hired director is an executive of the focal company.	inverted polarity; director-level firm-executive indicator; flip of outside at director level
Sub-construct: independent-and-something composite
Definition: Four quad qualifications: independence, experience, bandwidth, motivation (3 measures)
hasija_et_al_2025	Quad Independent Directors	board \| count \| none	Number of independent directors on the board who meet all four qualifications used for LIDs: independence, expertise, bandwidth, and motivation.	board count of quad-qualified independent directors; person-scope (board vs chair vs LID) treated as level
hasija_et_al_2025	Quad Board Chair	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator of whether the board chair meets the same four quad qualifications, except chair independence is measured by whether the chair is an outsider rather than an insider executive.	chair version of quad qualifications; independence qualification measured as outsider status
hasija_et_al_2025	Quad Qualified LID	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the LID meets all four quad qualifications: appointed to the board before the CEO, at least three prior board appointments, no different full-time position, and pay more than 30% above average board pay; zero otherwise.	lead-independent-director version of quad qualifications
Definition: Independent and non-distracted directors; board share (1 measure)
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-distracted IDs	board \| share \| none	Number of directors on the board who are independent and non-distracted divided by total board size.	kept apart from the co-opted split; distraction filter alone defines the composite
Definition: Independent NEDs with past CFO/finance-director role; board share (1 measure)
delis_et_al_2017	Independent past roles	board \| share \| none	Percentage of board directors who are independent non-executive directors and have held a past chief financial officer or finance director role.
Sub-construct: independence composite index
Definition: Standardized index: outside share, chair separation, outsider equity pay (3 measures)
zhu_shen_2016	Focal board independence	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Sum of standardized scores for percentage outside directors, CEO/chair separation, outside-director stock compensation, and outside-director option compensation.
zhu_shen_2016	Change in board independence	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Sum of standardized focal-minus-prior-board changes in percentage outside directors, CEO/chair separation, outside-director stock compensation, and outside-director stock-option compensation; prior-board values average the preceding five years and focal values average up to three post-appointment years.	difference (focal minus prior board) of the same index; transformation ignored
zhu_shen_2016	Post-succession change in focal board independence	board \| continuous \| none	Focal board independence in the last year of the new CEO’s tenure, up to three years, minus focal board independence in the appointment year.	post-succession change in the same index; transformation ignored
Sub-construct: co-opted independence
Definition: Independent non-distracted directors appointed after current CEO; board share (2 measures)
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-distracted non-co-opted IDs	board \| share \| none	Number of board directors who are independent, non-distracted, and not appointed after the current CEO assumed office, divided by board size.	inverted polarity; counts the non-co-opted complement within non-distracted independent directors
masulis_zhang_2019	Non-distracted co-opted IDs	board \| share \| none	Number of board directors who are independent, non-distracted, and appointed after the current CEO assumed office, divided by board size.
Sub-construct: gray director
Definition: Outside directors with material firm ties; count (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Number of Affiliate Directors	board \| count \| none	Count of outside board members with material ties to the organization.
Definition: Director related to a firm employee; indicator (1 measure)
busenbark_et_al_2023	Employee connection	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the focal director is related to an employee and 0 otherwise.	family tie to an employee; kept apart from material-business-ties gray classifier
Sub-construct: independent chair
Definition: Chair lacks stakeholder relationships; hand-coded, two-year cooling-off (1 measure)
andrei_et_al_2023	Independent chair	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator for a supervisory board chair independent from the company, management board, and controlling shareholders. A chair was independent when no personal or professional relationship with a company stakeholder was identified; chairs appointed within two years after leaving the management board were nonindependent.
Definition: Chair independent under SEC/exchange listing standards (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2016	Chair is Independent	chair \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the chair is classified as an independent director under SEC and listing-exchange standards and 0 otherwise. An independent chair cannot be the sitting or recent CEO and must lack material connections to management.	chair kept as a distinct reference set; listing-standards classifier distinct from hand-coded chair rule
Sub-construct: unclassifiable
Definition: Operationalization too vague to determine the definition (1 measure)
oehmichen_et_al_2017	Board independence	board \| continuous \| none	Board-level independence measure; the paper does not state its precise construction.	construction not stated; cannot distinguish independent-classified vs outside definition

Networks: 239 measures, 47 papers

Lower bound (mechanical; no text is read): raw count 40 forms, effective number 14.4; 14% of measures use the modal form (firm-level binary, no named procedure).
LLM draft classification (reads the operationalization text): 13 sub-constructs; raw count 99 definition groups, effective number 45.7; 1 record indeterminate.

The quantity layer is drafted for the gender and expertise pilots only; this construct's listing groups records by sub-construct and definition.

How the lower bound arises: every occupied form cell

Level	Resolution	Named procedure	Measures
firm	count	none	34
firm	binary	none	34
board	count	none	23
firm	continuous	graph_position	16
director	binary	none	15
firm	ordinal	none	13
director	count	none	10
ceo	count	none	7
firm	count	graph_position	7
firm	share	pairwise_comparison	6
firm	continuous	pairwise_comparison	6
board	binary	none	6
firm	binary	graph_position	6
board	share	none	5
firm	continuous	model_derived	4
director	binary	graph_position	4
deal	binary	none	3
firm	continuous	none	3
director	count	graph_position	3
director	continuous	graph_position	3
ceo	continuous	spread_statistic	2
other	continuous	graph_position	2
other	continuous	none	2
board	continuous	spread_statistic	2
ceo	binary	none	2
director	continuous	none	2
other	binary	none	2
board	continuous	none	2
ceo	share	none	2
board	share	graph_position	2
board	binary	model_derived	2
board	continuous	graph_position	1
ceo	count	graph_position	1
board	continuous	latent_weighting	1
firm	continuous	latent_weighting	1
chair	continuous	latent_weighting	1
director	share	none	1
board	count	graph_position	1
other	count	none	1
board	continuous	model_derived	1

The effective number is the inverse Simpson index of these cell shares: 1 / Σ p_i².

All records, grouped by the LLM draft classification

Paper	Variable	Form	Operationalization (verbatim from the coding)	Note
Sub-construct: interlocks with specific counterparty types
Definition: share of TNIC4 competitor pairs sharing a director (6 measures)
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| continuous \| model_derived	Predicted value of TN4 OD density from the first-stage difference-in-differences regression instrumented by TN4 ISS treatment interacted with the post-2004 period and controlling for lagged log assets and lagged log firm age.	first-stage fitted value of baseline density
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	The baseline TNIC4 overlapping-director density used as a lagged right-hand-side variable in firm-technology-year regressions.
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Baseline TNIC4 OD density set to zero if the focal firm is not connected to the ODN through either a board overlap or directors sharing employment at another institution such as a country club, charity, university, or corporation.	zeroed variant of baseline density
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Baseline TNIC4 OD density set to zero when the focal firm has no direct overlapping-director connection to a TNIC4 peer.	zeroed variant of baseline density
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Baseline TNIC4 OD density set to zero when the focal firm has no connection to the economy-wide overlapping-director network.	zeroed variant of baseline density
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Average overlapping-director incidence among the focal firm’s TNIC4 competitors; the fraction of all pairwise permutations among those competitors that share at least one director.
Definition: shared board member with gender-quota target firm (5 measures)
guiso_et_al_2026	in Target	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if newly appointed individual j currently sits on the board of a listed or state-controlled target company and zero otherwise.	appointee's own target-board seat; same shared-member raw facts
guiso_et_al_2026	Connected	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if non-target firm i shared at least one board member with a target firm in 2009, 2010, or 2011.
guiso_et_al_2026	Current_C	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if firm i is connected through a shared board member to a target firm in the current year t.	current-year window variant
guiso_et_al_2026	Mean Connection	firm \| continuous \| none	Average annual number of the focal firm's board members who also sit on a target-firm board during 2009–2011: the sum across directors and years of shared-director indicators divided by three.
guiso_et_al_2026	Mean Tot. Connection	firm \| continuous \| none	Average annual number of target-company board positions held by the focal firm's shared directors during 2009–2011: positions summed over shared directors and years and divided by three.	counts positions rather than persons
Definition: new shared director/executive link with product-market peer (4 measures)
gopalan_et_al_2026	DirectTreated (quarterly firm)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for a firm forming a new direct connection to a product-market peer, with connection events dated quarterly; qualifying connectors may hold board positions at both firms or a board position at one and a senior-executive position at the other.
gopalan_et_al_2026	DirectTreated (firm-pair)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for a product-market-peer firm pair that forms a new direct board connection.
gopalan_et_al_2026	DirectTreated (local market)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for a firm-product-module-3-digit-ZIP combination affected by a new direct peer connection when the treated firm and connected peer both operate locally and their joint pre-treatment market share exceeds 10%, 5%, or 3%, depending on the specification.
gopalan_et_al_2026	DirectTreated (annual firm)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for a treated firm that forms a new direct connection to a Hoberg–Phillips product-market peer, where the firms share a director and had no pre-existing direct or indirect connection.
Definition: new indirect board link to peer via intermediate firm (4 measures)
gopalan_et_al_2026	IndirectTreated (annual firm)	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Indicator for a treated firm that forms a new indirect connection to a Hoberg–Phillips product-market peer: the firms share no board member, but members of their respective boards serve on the board of the same intermediate firm; no prior direct or indirect connection exists.
gopalan_et_al_2026	IndirectTreated (local market)	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Indicator for a firm-product-module-3-digit-ZIP combination affected by a new indirect peer connection when the firms both operate locally and their joint pre-treatment market share exceeds 10%, 5%, or 3%.
gopalan_et_al_2026	IndirectTreated (firm-pair)	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Indicator for a product-market-peer firm pair that forms a new indirect board connection through an intermediate firm.
gopalan_et_al_2026	IndirectTreated (quarterly firm)	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Indicator for a firm forming a new indirect connection to a product-market peer through an intermediate firm, with the event dated quarterly and the barcode sample's expanded board/senior-executive connector definition.
Definition: direct or indirect (PE/VC) interlock with same-NAICS3 competitor (3 measures)
donelson_et_al_2025	CIL	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if any focal-firm director is part of a direct or indirect interlock with another firm sharing the focal firm's three-digit NAICS industry, and zero otherwise.
donelson_et_al_2025	CIL	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the independent director is part of a direct or indirect interlock with another firm sharing the focal firm's three-digit NAICS code, and zero otherwise. Direct interlocks involve the same director serving competing firms; indirect interlocks involve different directors employed by the same private-equity or venture-capital firm.
donelson_et_al_2025	CILPair	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the two firms in the firm-pair are competitor-interlocked, and zero otherwise.
Definition: interlock counts split by partner founder/family/public type (3 measures)
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	N Links Fam	firm \| count \| none	Number of interlocks of any received, neutral, or sent type connecting the focal firm to other family companies.
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	N Links Pub	firm \| count \| none	Number of interlocks of any received, neutral, or sent type connecting the focal firm to regular public companies.
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	N Links Fdr	firm \| count \| none	Number of interlocks of any received, neutral, or sent type connecting the focal firm to lone-founder companies.
Definition: any director also on qualifying media-firm board (3 measures)
di_giuli_laux_2022	MLD(IV)	board \| binary \| model_derived	Instrumented media-linked-director indicator in final-stage models, using fitted probabilities from a first-stage Probit of MLD on CEO-Network IV, controls, and fixed effects as the excluded instrument.	IV fitted value of MLD; grouped with underlying tie
di_giuli_laux_2022	MLD(IV)	board \| binary \| model_derived	Instrumented media-linked-director indicator in final-stage models, using fitted probabilities from a first-stage Probit of MLD on Distance IV, controls, and fixed effects as the excluded instrument.	IV fitted value of MLD; grouped with underlying tie
di_giuli_laux_2022	MLD	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when at least one director of the focal firm also sits on the board of a qualifying media firm. Media firms are identified from specified CRSP SIC ranges, screened manually, and supplemented with selected cable-network firms that produce news and information.
Definition: directors with positions at firms borrowing from focal firm's banks (2 measures)
ferreira_et_al_2018	Number of nonconnected directors	board \| count \| none	Number of board members without a board or nonboard position in another firm whose outstanding loans share a bank with the focal firm’s current banks.	inverted polarity; count of non-connected directors; inverse of connected count
ferreira_et_al_2018	Number of connected directors	board \| count \| none	Number of board members with a board or nonboard position in another firm whose outstanding loans share at least one bank, whether lead arranger or participant, with the focal firm’s current banks.
Definition: firm and charity sharing a board member, prior year (2 measures)
ahn_et_al_2025	Connections	board \| count \| none	Number of board connections charity j shares with firms, measured in the previous year.
ahn_et_al_2025	Connected	other \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if firm i and charity j shared a director on their boards in the prior year and zero otherwise.
Definition: peer-network exposure to 2003 ISS busy-director rule (2 measures)
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN4 ISS Treated	firm \| binary \| none	Time-invariant indicator that the focal firm’s TNIC4 network was affected in 2003 by the ISS rule targeting directors serving on more than six public-company boards, or more than three including the focal firm if the director was also a CEO.
cabezon_hoberg_2025	(TN4 ISS treated)x(post2004)	firm \| binary \| none	Product of the indicator for a focal firm’s TNIC4 network being affected by the ISS rule in 2003 and the post-2004 period indicator.	interaction with post-period indicator
Definition: exposure to female directors through board interlocks (2 measures)
mitra_et_al_2021	Male-to-female director connections	board \| share \| none	Fraction of male directors on the focal firm's board who sit on one or more outside boards with at least one female director.
guldiken_et_al_2019	Interlocking female directors	firm \| count \| none	Number of female directors on boards of firms interlocked with the focal firm.
Definition: target connection split by target-board female share (2 measures)
guiso_et_al_2026	Exposed	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if firm i is connected to a target firm whose board had less than 20% women in 2011; for multiple connections, the maximum target-board female share is used.
guiso_et_al_2026	NotExposed	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if firm i is connected to a target firm with more than 20% women on its board in 2011; for multiple connections, the maximum target-board female share is used.	inverted polarity; complement cell: connected to high-female-share target
Definition: board connections to individuals at commercial banks (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	Board network	board \| count \| none	Board connections restricted to connections between focal-firm directors and individuals at commercial banks with SIC codes 6020–6029; entered in financing-need and loan-term analyses.
Definition: CEO's pre-tenure co-board service with media-linked director (1 measure)
di_giuli_laux_2022	CEO-Network IV	ceo \| binary \| none	Indicator for whether the focal firm's CEO, before becoming CEO of the current firm, served on another board with a media-linked director.
Definition: overlapping-director density among distant TNIC peers (1 measure)
cabezon_hoberg_2025	TN2-TN4 OD density	firm \| share \| pairwise_comparison	Overlapping-director density among each focal firm’s distant peers, defined as firms with TNIC product similarities below the top 1% but within the top 5%, using the same local-clustering formulation as baseline OD density.
Definition: shared director with TNIC4 direct competitor (1 measure)
cabezon_hoberg_2025	1 if connected to CODN	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the focal firm has an overlapping director sitting on the board of at least one direct-competitor TNIC4 peer.
Definition: pooled direct and indirect new peer connections (1 measure)
gopalan_et_al_2026	Treated	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for a firm forming either a new direct or indirect board connection to a product-market peer; direct and indirect events are pooled.	pools direct and indirect events; kept separate from either
Definition: shared director with firm connected to quota target (1 measure)
guiso_et_al_2026	Connected 2	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Dummy equal to one if firm i shared at least one board member with a first-order connected firm in 2009, 2010, or 2011; directly connected firms are removed.
Definition: board positions at other same-business-group firms (1 measure)
jeong_et_al_2022	Intragroup centrality	firm \| count \| none	Degree centrality within the intragroup board-interlock network, calculated as the total number of board positions held at other firms in the same business group by board members of the focal firm.
Definition: interlock tie to firm with lead independent director (1 measure)
krause_et_al_2017	Lead Director Interlock	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator that the focal firm has an interlocking tie to a firm that currently has a lead independent director.
Definition: share of board serving vertically related-industry firms (1 measure)
schabus_2022	DRI_INDEX	board \| share \| none	Proportion of board members who are also directors or executives at a firm in a vertically related industry, with relatedness defined at the 5 percent level.
Sub-construct: interlock network structure and dynamics (model terms)
Definition: degree-based ERGM/SAOM effects on interlock formation (18 measures)
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree activity	firm \| count \| none	Effect of the focal firm's existing number of incoming interlocks on its tendency to invite further executives to its supervisory board.
triebel_et_al_2026	Popularity based on indirect interlock network	firm \| count \| none	Effect of a firm's number of indirect interlocks on its popularity in the directed incoming-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	Popularity based on indirect interlock network	firm \| count \| none	Effect of a firm's number of indirect interlocks on its popularity in the directed outgoing-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	Activity based on indirect interlock network	firm \| count \| none	Effect of the focal firm's number of indirect interlocks on its activity in the directed incoming-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	Indegree	firm \| count \| none	Number of outgoing-network interlocks received by the focal firm, entered to explain changes in acquisition or divestiture activity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree	firm \| count \| none	Number of outgoing interlocks sent by the focal firm, entered to explain changes in acquisition or divestiture activity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Indegree	firm \| count \| none	Focal firm's indegree in the directed incoming-interlock network under the model's incoming-network agency convention, entered to explain changes in acquisition or divestiture activity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree	firm \| count \| none	Focal firm's outdegree in the directed incoming-interlock network under the model's incoming-network agency convention, entered to explain changes in acquisition or divestiture activity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree	firm \| count \| none	Number of indirect interlocks held by the focal firm in the undirected network, entered to explain changes in acquisition or divestiture activity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Activity based on indirect interlock network	firm \| count \| none	Effect of the focal firm's number of indirect interlocks on its activity in the directed outgoing-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree popularity	firm \| count \| none	Effect on incoming-interlock formation of the number of outgoing ties the prospective partner firm has in the incoming-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree popularity	firm \| count \| none	Effect on outgoing-interlock formation of the number of outgoing interlocks the prospective partner firm has established with other firms.
triebel_et_al_2026	Indegree popularity	firm \| count \| none	Effect on incoming-interlock formation of the number of incoming-network ties received by the prospective partner firm under the model's incoming-network agency convention.
triebel_et_al_2026	Indegree popularity	firm \| count \| none	Effect on outgoing-interlock formation of the number of incoming interlocks received by the prospective partner firm.
triebel_et_al_2026	Degree activity and popularity	firm \| count \| none	Combined effect of the focal firm's existing degree in the undirected indirect-interlock network on further indirect-interlock activity and popularity.
triebel_et_al_2026	Outdegree activity	firm \| count \| none	Effect of the focal firm's existing number of outgoing interlocks on its tendency to create further outgoing interlocks.
kim_et_al_2016	Popularity spread	other \| continuous \| none	Geometrically weighted in-degree distribution (GWID/gwidegree) statistic modeling variation in how often a firm's director is invited by multiple other firms to external directorships.	degree-distribution spread statistic
kim_et_al_2016	Activity spread	other \| continuous \| none	Geometrically weighted out-degree distribution (GWOD/gwodegree) statistic modeling variation in how often a firm initiates interlock ties by inviting directors from multiple other firms.	degree-distribution spread statistic
Definition: SAOM sender effects of firm activity on interlock ties (12 measures)
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): incoming interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on an existing incoming interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): incoming interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on the likelihood of creating an incoming interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): indirect interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on an existing indirect interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): indirect interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on the likelihood of creating an indirect interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): outgoing interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on an existing outgoing interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): outgoing interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on the likelihood of creating an outgoing interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): indirect interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on the likelihood of creating an indirect interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): incoming interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on the likelihood of creating an incoming interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Divestitures (sender): outgoing interlock creation	firm \| ordinal \| none	Creation-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's divestiture-activity category on the likelihood of creating an outgoing interlock.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): indirect interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on an existing indirect interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): incoming interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on an existing incoming interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
triebel_et_al_2026	Acquisitions (sender): outgoing interlock maintenance	firm \| ordinal \| none	Maintenance-specific SAOM sender effect of the focal firm's acquisition-activity category on an existing outgoing interlock; a negative estimate indicates increased dissolution likelihood.
Definition: GWESP/GWDSP shared-partner closure statistics on interlock networks (7 measures)
triebel_et_al_2026	GWESP based on indirect board ties	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edgewise shared-partners effect for closure of outgoing interlocks based on mutual indirect-board-interlock ties.
triebel_et_al_2026	GWESP	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edgewise shared-partners effect capturing closure in the undirected indirect-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	GWESP	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edgewise shared-partners effect capturing closure in the incoming-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	GWESP	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edgewise shared-partners effect capturing closure in the outgoing-interlock network.
triebel_et_al_2026	GWESP based on indirect board ties	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edgewise shared-partners effect for closure of incoming interlocks based on mutual indirect-board-interlock ties.
kim_et_al_2016	Generalized transitive closure	other \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted edge-wise shared partner (GWESP/gwesp) statistic capturing closure of transitive triads: when firm A has a board interlock with firm B and firm B has one with firm C, firm A is more likely to form an interlock with firm C.
kim_et_al_2016	Multiple connectivity	other \| continuous \| graph_position	Geometrically weighted dyad-wise shared partner (GWDSP/gwdsp) statistic capturing the formation of multiple two-paths that indirectly connect pairs of firms through other organizations sharing board interlocks with both.
Definition: SAOM average-similarity peer influence via interlock partners (6 measures)
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its acquisition-activity category to resemble the average acquisition activity of firms connected by incoming interlocks.
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its divestiture-activity category to resemble the average divestiture activity of firms connected by indirect interlocks.
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its acquisition-activity category to resemble the average acquisition activity of firms connected by outgoing interlocks.
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its acquisition-activity category to resemble the average acquisition activity of firms connected by indirect interlocks.
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its divestiture-activity category to resemble the average divestiture activity of firms connected by outgoing interlocks.
triebel_et_al_2026	Average similarity	firm \| continuous \| pairwise_comparison	SAOM average-similarity effect measuring the likelihood that the focal firm changes its divestiture-activity category to resemble the average divestiture activity of firms connected by incoming interlocks.
Definition: reciprocity of directed interlock ties (1 measure)
kim_et_al_2016	Reciprocity	other \| count \| none	ERGM mutual-tie statistic capturing the tendency for a directed tie from firm j to firm i to occur when firm i already has a tie to firm j; substantively, firm i places a member of its board on firm j's board after already having a director of firm j on its own board.
Sub-construct: network centrality / position
Definition: composite of multiple centralities on firm interlock network (3 measures)
schabus_2022	CENTRALITY	firm \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Largest factor from a separate annual factor analysis of EIGENVECTOR, CLOSENESS, and 1stDEGREE.	factor of three centralities; grouped with rank-average composite
chen_et_al_2025	M_Board_Centrality	firm \| continuous \| none	Firm-level average of Board_Centrality from 1996 through 2019.	time average of annual composite
chen_et_al_2025	Board_Centrality	firm \| ordinal \| none	Annual composite board-network score equal to the equally weighted average of the size-stratified quintile ranks for Degree, Closeness, Betweenness, and Eigenvector, rounded or classified to an integer rank from one to five; the main construction includes directors serving more than six months during the fiscal year.
Definition: eigenvector centrality in director co-board network (3 measures)
frankort_et_al_2026	Director eigenvector centrality	director \| continuous \| graph_position	Director’s normalized eigenvector centrality in the annual FTSE-100 director-to-director network, where two directors are tied if they serve on the same board; b is three-quarters of the reciprocal of the largest annual eigenvalue, and scores are normalized within years.
jiang_et_al_2021	Candidate social capital (CSC)	director \| continuous \| graph_position	Candidate’s eigenvector centrality in year t−1 within the year t−1 board-interlock network among all directors; centrality scores for all upper echelons were standardized.
jiang_et_al_2021	CSC²	director \| continuous \| graph_position	Squared term of Candidate social capital (CSC).	squared term of same centrality measure
Definition: incremental firms reachable at walk lengths 2-4, interlock graph (3 measures)
schabus_2022	3rdDEGREE	firm \| count \| graph_position	Number of other firms connected to the focal firm by a walk of length three but not already more directly connected; the powered adjacency matrix is converted to a binary incremental-connection matrix before counting.
schabus_2022	4thDEGREE	firm \| count \| graph_position	Number of other firms connected to the focal firm by a walk of length four but not already more directly connected; the powered adjacency matrix is converted to a binary incremental-connection matrix before counting.
schabus_2022	2ndDEGREE	firm \| count \| graph_position	Number of other firms connected to the focal firm by a walk of length two but not already more directly connected; the powered adjacency matrix is converted to a binary incremental-connection matrix before counting.
Definition: residualized k-step reach changes, orthogonal to direct ties (3 measures)
schabus_2022	D2ndDEGREE_RES	firm \| continuous \| model_derived	Residual from regressing the annual change in 2ndDEGREE on the annual change in 1stDEGREE; it measures the change in second-degree connections unexplained by changes in direct ties.
schabus_2022	D3rdDEGREE_RES	firm \| continuous \| model_derived	Residual from regressing the annual change in 3rdDEGREE on the annual change in 1stDEGREE; it measures the change in third-degree connections unexplained by changes in direct ties.
schabus_2022	D4thDEGREE_RES	firm \| continuous \| model_derived	Residual from regressing the annual change in 4thDEGREE on the annual change in 1stDEGREE; it measures the change in fourth-degree connections unexplained by changes in direct ties.
Definition: decay-weighted closeness on firm interlock graph (1 measure)
schabus_2022	CLOSENESS	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Decay-weighted proximity of the focal firm to every other firm, based on shortest-path length and decay parameter 3/4; standardized within year.
Definition: Katz-Bonacich walk-based centrality on firm interlock graph (1 measure)
schabus_2022	EIGENVECTOR	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Katz-Bonacich centrality based on the decay-weighted number of walks from the focal firm to other firms, truncated at length six, using decay parameter 3/4; standardized within year.
Definition: boards reachable through peer directors (two-step reach) (1 measure)
frankort_et_al_2026	Board reach of peer directors	director \| count \| graph_position	Natural log of the number of unique FTSE-100 boards plus one on which the focal director’s peer directors served in year t, excluding boards also served by the focal director.
Definition: betweenness centrality on shared-education firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality ED Style	firm \| count \| graph_position	Betweenness centrality computed in the ED Style network.
Definition: closeness centrality on shared-education firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality ED Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Inverse average network distance from the focal firm to other nodes in the ED Style network.
Definition: degree centrality on shared-education firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality ED Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Degree centrality computed in the ED Style network, whose links join firms when their individuals attended the same school regardless of temporal overlap.
Definition: eigenvector centrality on shared-education firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality ED Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Dominant-eigenvector centrality computed in the ED Style network.
Definition: betweenness centrality on past-employment firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality PE Style	firm \| count \| graph_position	Betweenness centrality computed in the PE Style network.
Definition: closeness centrality on past-employment firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality PE Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Inverse average network distance from the focal firm to other nodes in the PE Style network.
Definition: degree centrality on past-employment firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality PE Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Degree centrality computed in the PE Style network, whose links join firms when their individuals share a past employer regardless of temporal overlap.
Definition: eigenvector centrality on past-employment firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality PE Style	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Dominant-eigenvector centrality computed in the PE Style network.
Definition: betweenness centrality on combined multi-channel firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality SNI	firm \| count \| graph_position	Number or average number of shortest paths linking pairs of companies in the SNI network that pass through the focal firm.
Definition: closeness centrality on combined multi-channel firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality SNI	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Inverse of the average network distance between the focal firm and all other nodes in the SNI network.
Definition: degree centrality on combined multi-channel firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality SNI	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Sum of all direct valued SNI links a firm has with other companies, divided by the number of companies in the network.
Definition: eigenvector centrality on combined multi-channel firm network (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Centrality SNI	firm \| continuous \| graph_position	Dominant eigenvector of the sociomatrix for the SNI network, interpreted as the relative importance of the firm’s node.
Sub-construct: network size / general social connections
Definition: first-degree multi-channel (employment/education/social) connections count (12 measures)
kang_kang_2024	Outside director network	board \| continuous \| model_derived	Logarithm of the average number of outside directors' first-degree connections through employment, education, and other activities, residualized by regressing it on firm size, board size, and firm performance.	residualized log average network size; grouped with underlying tie
delis_et_al_2017	Director network	board \| continuous \| none	Board average network size measured by directors outside the firm linked to the board’s directors.	link channel unspecified; grouped with generic first-degree network size
chang_wu_2021	Nonindependent network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of connections of nonindependent directors.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	Independent network (nonbusy)	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of connections of independent directors holding fewer than three board seats.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	Independent network (busy)	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of connections of independent directors holding at least three board seats.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	High-ranked network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus connections stemming from independent directors for whom the focal firm is at least 10% larger in market capitalization than the smallest firm at which the director holds a board seat.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	Non–CEO director network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of individuals with whom non-CEO directors share common employment, education, or other social history.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	Low-ranked network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus connections stemming from independent directors whose focal-firm directorship does not meet the high-ranked 10% market-capitalization criterion.	director-subset decomposition of base board network; same tie definition
chang_wu_2021	Board network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the aggregate number of distinct directors and top executives outside the focal firm with whom the focal firm’s directors share overlapping employment, education, or active nonbusiness-organization histories; duplicate person-pairs connected through multiple types are excluded.
chang_wu_2021	CEO–director network	ceo \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of individuals with whom the CEO who also serves on the board shares common employment, education, or other social history.	CEO's own connections; subject-subset of board network measure
chang_wu_2021	Connected	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the deceased or retired director had at least one external connection.	departing director's connections; binary version of same tie
chang_wu_2021	Connected	director \| count \| none	Number of external connections held by the deceased or retired director.	departing director's connections; count version of same tie
Definition: count of first- and second-degree professional connections (4 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	Incumbent directors’ networks	board \| count \| graph_position	Total number of first- and second-degree connections of incumbent directors at the appointing firm.
cai_et_al_2021	Total CEO network	ceo \| count \| graph_position	Total size of the incumbent CEO’s network; exact degree coverage is not separately defined in the supplied text.	degree coverage not fully stated; grouped with paper's main construction
cai_et_al_2021	Second-degree connection	director \| binary \| graph_position	Exists between two individuals when each has a first-degree connection to a third person.	tie-definition building block for the paper's connection measures
cai_et_al_2021	Appointee’s (candidate’s) total networks	director \| count \| graph_position	Total number of first- and second-degree connections of the appointee or candidate at the appointment date.
Definition: board connections split by same versus other industry (2 measures)
chang_wu_2021	Same ind. network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of board connections with individuals in the same two-digit SIC industry as the focal firm.
chang_wu_2021	Other ind. network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of board connections with individuals in industries different from the focal firm’s two-digit SIC industry.
Definition: board connections split by counterparty-industry innovativeness (2 measures)
chang_wu_2021	Noninnovative ind. network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus board connections with individuals in industries not classified as innovative under the above-median industry citation criterion.	complementary cell of innovativeness partition
chang_wu_2021	Innovative ind. network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus board connections with individuals in industries whose average citation count exceeds the sample median across two-digit SIC industries.
Definition: second-degree connections gained from nearby M&As, scaled (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Fraction of network gain due to M&As	board \| share \| graph_position	Second-degree connections gained from M&As completed during the prior three years by firms directly connected to, but not involving, the appointing firm, divided by appointing-board network size; target and acquirer directors and executives are excluded.
Definition: connections lost to connected-director deaths, scaled (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Fraction of network loss due to director death	board \| share \| graph_position	First- and second-degree connections lost because unreplaced connected directors died during the prior three years, divided by appointing-board network size at the appointment date; deaths of the firm’s own directors and replacement-offset cases are excluded.
Definition: connections via same school with attendance overlap (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	Education network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of individuals with whom directors attended the same educational institution with an overlap in attendance time.
Definition: connections via overlapping employment at same nonfocal firm (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	Employment network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of individuals with whom directors share current or past employment at the same nonfocal firm at the same time.
Definition: connections via active shared nonbusiness-organization membership (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	Social network	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of individuals with whom directors share a common active membership in a nonbusiness organization; passive members are excluded except for clubs.
Sub-construct: board interlocks / co-directorships
Definition: count/presence of firms sharing at least one director (8 measures)
diestre_et_al_2015	Focal firm interlocks	board \| count \| none	Total number of interlocking directors on the focal firm’s board.
cabezon_hoberg_2025	1 if connected to ODN	firm \| binary \| graph_position	Indicator equal to one when the focal firm is connected to the economy-wide overlapping-director network.	any-interlock dummy; binary of same raw facts
benton_2021	Degree centrality	firm \| count \| none	Number of other firms connected to the focal firm through overlapping board appointments in the total board-interlock network.
cannella_jr_et_al_2015	N Links	firm \| count \| none	Total number of firm-to-firm directorship interlocks of any of the received, neutral, or sent types for the focal firm-year.
huang_et_al_2025	IndNet Centrality	firm \| count \| none	Logarithm of one plus the number of intermediary firms sharing interlocked board directors or senior-manager/director links with the focal firm.	connector includes senior-manager/director links
jung_et_al_2023	Interlocks	firm \| count \| none	Count of firms to which the focal firm is connected through board interlocks.
schabus_2022	1stDEGREE	firm \| count \| none	Number of other firms directly connected to the focal firm because the two firms share at least one director in the year.
zhu_chen_2015	Network centrality	firm \| count \| none	Total number of firms sharing interlock ties with the focal firm during years t−3 through t−1.	three-year lookback window
Definition: firm-pair dummy/count of shared directors (6 measures)
cabezon_hoberg_2025	Director overlap	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator that a pair of firms shares at least one director in a given year.
hann_et_al_2025	Board Tie	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if supplier i and buyer j share at least one common director in year t, and zero otherwise.	supplier-buyer pair universe treated as sample detail
kim_et_al_2016	Prior interlocks	firm \| binary \| none	Binary dyadic sociomatrix coded one when a pair of sampled firms had one or more board-interlock ties during 2001–2005 and zero otherwise.	2001-2005 window
triebel_et_al_2026	Indirect board interlocks	firm \| binary \| none	Presence or absence of an undirected interlock formed by an individual serving on both the focal and another sample firm's boards without holding an executive role in either firm, observed at the end of December each year.	non-executive connector, German two-tier boards
wu_2025	D_Connection	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 when the cited and citing firms share at least one DSM in a year, and 0 otherwise.	connector set includes senior managers (DSM)
wu_2025	#Connection	firm \| count \| none	Total number of DSMs common to a cited firm and a citing firm in a year.	count version; DSM connector
Definition: past co-board service with regulatorily penalized director (3 measures)
ding_et_al_2026	Connected Director	board \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if firm i has at least one connected director sitting on its board in the previous year.
ding_et_al_2026	Dⁿ	director \| binary \| none	Series of indicators equal to one when the difference between current year t and the first regulatory penalty received by director j’s connected peer is n years, and zero otherwise; all indicators are zero for controls, with the penalty year omitted as reference.	event-time dummies on same tie
ding_et_al_2026	Connected	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one after quarter q when director j previously served concurrently on a board with another director who received a regulatory penalty; it is zero through the penalty quarter and for unconnected directors. Connections through firms directly or indirectly exposed to the penalty are excluded from the main sample.
Definition: directed interlock: one firm's executive on another's board (3 measures)
triebel_et_al_2026	Outgoing board interlocks	firm \| binary \| none	Presence or absence of a directed interlock when an executive of the focal firm serves on another sample firm's supervisory board, observed at the end of December each year.
triebel_et_al_2026	Incoming board interlocks	firm \| binary \| none	Presence or absence of a directed interlock when an executive of another sample firm serves on the focal firm's supervisory board, observed at the end of December each year.
kim_et_al_2016	Tie formation through board interlocks	other \| binary \| none	A directed binary tie equals one when a director or executive of one sampled firm accepts a directorship with another sampled firm during 2006–2010 and zero when no such tie is present; all possible ties are assembled into a 95 by 95 binary sociomatrix.	tie-formation event, 2006-2010
Definition: unique directors connected to focal director via board co-service (1 measure)
field_et_al_2020	Director network size	director \| count \| none	Number of unique directors connected to the focal director through board service.
Definition: interlocked firms where potential director holds no seat (1 measure)
diestre_et_al_2015	Potential director new ties	firm \| count \| none	Number of firms interlocked with the focal firm in which the potential director does not sit.
Definition: interlocked board per Execucomp definition (1 measure)
huang_hilary_2018	Interlocked Board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the board is interlocked with another company as defined by Execucomp.	Execucomp interlock definition narrower than generic interlock; kept separate
Sub-construct: social ties to the CEO / top executives
Definition: prior shared outside board service between CEO and director (3 measures)
zhu_shen_2016	CEO’s prior ties to directors	ceo \| binary \| none	Equals 1 if the new outside CEO previously held common board appointments with any focal-board directors and 0 otherwise.
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s private board ties to the CEO	director \| count \| none	Number of prior common board appointments held by the new director and focal CEO at private firms.	private-firm venue cell
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s public board ties to the CEO	director \| count \| none	Number of prior common board appointments held by the new director and focal CEO at other publicly traded firms.	public-firm venue cell
Definition: change in director-executive tie around CEO/CFO turnover (2 measures)
cao_et_al_2015	Affected director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a director unconnected with the departing CEO/CFO but connected with the incoming CEO/CFO, with trades before and after turnover; 0 for an eligible same-firm director remaining unconnected.	tie gained with incoming executive
cao_et_al_2015	Affected director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 for a director previously connected with the departing CEO/CFO but unconnected with either CEO or CFO after replacement; 0 for an eligible same-firm director whose connection is unaffected.	tie lost with departing executive
Definition: focal CEO's co-board ties to other CEOs tied to new director (2 measures)
zhu_chen_2014	Other CEOs’ private board ties to the CEO	ceo \| count \| none	Private-company board ties between the focal CEO and other CEOs tied to the new director; the paper does not state the precise aggregation across other CEOs.	private-company venue cell
zhu_chen_2014	Other CEOs’ public board ties to the CEO	ceo \| count \| none	Public-company board ties between the focal CEO and other CEOs tied to the new director; the paper does not state the precise aggregation across other CEOs.	public-company venue cell
Definition: CEO first- or second-degree connection with candidate (1 measure)
cai_et_al_2021	Connected to CEO (1/0)	director \| binary \| graph_position	Equals one if the appointing-firm CEO has a first- or second-degree connection with the appointee or candidate.
Definition: new director-CEO shared employer or near-simultaneous graduation (1 measure)
gormley_et_al_2023	Connection to CEO	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the newly hired director and CEO ever worked simultaneously at the same employer or graduated from the same post-secondary institution within one year.
Definition: new director-CEO informal ties via clubs, charities, military (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s informal ties to the CEO	director \| count \| none	Number of significant social ties between the new director and focal CEO formed through charitable organizations, universities, social clubs, the military, sports teams, and other government agencies.
Definition: focal CEO's informal ties to other CEOs tied to new director (1 measure)
zhu_chen_2014	Other CEOs’ informal ties to the CEO	ceo \| count \| none	Informal ties between the focal CEO and other CEOs tied to the new director; the paper does not state the precise aggregation across other CEOs.	aggregation across other CEOs unstated
Definition: years director and incoming CEO spent at same organizations (1 measure)
busenbark_et_al_2023	Time shared at the firm	director \| continuous \| none	Number of years the focal director spent at the same organization as the incoming CEO, either at the focal firm or at previous organizations.
Definition: count of CEO-director employment/education/social connections (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	CEO–director ties	board \| count \| none	Natural logarithm of one plus the number of employment, education, and other social connections between the CEO and directors.
Definition: any independent director sharing education/social membership with CEO (1 measure)
chang_wu_2021	Friendly board	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if at least one independent director shares an educational background or active membership in a nonbusiness organization with the CEO.
Definition: military, university, birthplace, or employer tie to chairman/CEO/owner (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2016	SocialTie	director \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to one if the independent director and the chairman, CEO, or ultimate owner served in the same military unit, graduated from the same university within three years, were born in the same city or province, or worked for the same employer.
Definition: director tie to CEO/CFO via employment, nonprofit, or school (1 measure)
cao_et_al_2015	Ties	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if, at the trade date, the independent director shares at least one connection with the firm's CEO or CFO through current employment at another firm, past employment at another firm, executive service in the same nonprofit organization, or attendance at the same school in the same years; 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: other inter-organizational ties (alliances, lending)
Definition: additions/disruptions of interlock-lending paths to banks (6 measures)
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (new bank addition)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for focal firms whose preexisting intermediary firm obtains a new bank that was not previously represented in the focal firm's indirect network.
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (intermediation disruption)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for treated focal firms whose intermediary firm experiences a director death or quasi-exogenous retirement; the affected intermediary is connected through interlocks and lending relationships to the focal firm and bank, and the departing director does not directly work for the focal firm or bank.
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (Connection disruption)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for focal firms experiencing an interlocking-director disruption through death or retirement at an intermediary firm that has an existing lending relationship with bank B.
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (Connection addition)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for focal firms experiencing addition of a new interlocking director on an intermediary board where that intermediary has an existing lending relationship with bank B.
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (Potential disruption)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for focal firms experiencing an intermediary-firm interlocking-director retirement or death where the intermediary has no existing lending relationship with the relevant bank.
huang_et_al_2025	Treat (Potential addition)	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator for focal firms experiencing addition of an intermediary-firm interlocking director where the intermediary has no existing lending relationship with the relevant bank.
Definition: prior lending relationship with current lender, windowed (4 measures)
huang_et_al_2025	Deal in Past 6 Years or Earlier Indicator	deal \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the current borrower borrowed from at least one current syndicate member six or more years before the current facility.	window cell of same lending-relationship tie
huang_et_al_2025	Deal in Past 1–3 Years Indicator	deal \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the current borrower borrowed from at least one current syndicate member during the previous three years.
huang_et_al_2025	Deal in Past 4–5 Years Indicator	deal \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the current borrower borrowed from at least one current syndicate member four to five years before the current facility.
huang_et_al_2025	Most Recent Lender (<1 Year) of Intermediary Firm	firm \| binary \| none	Indicator that the bank issued a loan to an intermediary firm during the prior year.	bank-intermediary dyad; same prior-lending tie concept
Definition: firm's strategic-alliance participation or alliance-network degree (3 measures)
kang_kang_2024	Firm network centrality	firm \| count \| graph_position	Degree centrality of the firm in the alliance network; the paper does not state whether it is normalized or provide a formula.	degree in alliance network; grouped with alliance-count covariates
kim_et_al_2016	Sender (prior alliance activities)	firm \| count \| none	ERGM sender node covariate based on the number of alliances in which the initiating firm engaged from 2001 through 2005.
kim_et_al_2016	Receiver (prior alliance activities)	firm \| count \| none	ERGM receiver node covariate based on the number of alliances from 2001 through 2005 involving the firm whose director is invited to another sampled firm's board.
Definition: interlocked intermediary firms counted by bank lending status (2 measures)
huang_et_al_2025	IndNet Connection	firm \| count \| none	Logarithm of one plus the number of intermediary firms interlocked with the focal firm that had lending relationships with the bank during the prior five years.
huang_et_al_2025	IndNet Potential	firm \| count \| none	Logarithm of one plus the number of intermediary firms interlocked with the focal firm that had no lending relationship with the particular bank during the prior five years.	complement cell: intermediaries without lending relationship
Sub-construct: vicarious experience through board ties
Definition: acquisition experience at directors' tied boards, three-year window (4 measures)
zhu_chen_2015	Number of acquisitions previously experienced by directors	board \| count \| none	Number of acquisitions experienced by other focal-board directors during years t−3 through t−1.
zhu_chen_2015	Directors’ prior experience	board \| share \| none	Mean acquisition emphasis experienced by directors other than the CEO on other boards during years t−3 through t−1, with the stated recency and employer-firm adjustments.
zhu_chen_2015	Number of acquisitions previously experienced by the CEO	ceo \| count \| none	Number of acquisitions experienced by the CEO during years t−3 through t−1.
zhu_chen_2015	CEO’s prior experience	ceo \| share \| none	Mean acquisition emphasis over firms where the CEO held a board position during years t−3 through t−1, weighting years t−1, t−2, and t−3 by 1, 2/3, and 1/3 and multiplying employer-firm observations by two.
Definition: international experience at directors' tied boards, three-year window (4 measures)
zhu_chen_2015	Number of international firms tied to directors	board \| count \| none	Number of firms generating some international revenue that were tied to other focal-board directors during years t−3 through t−1.
zhu_chen_2015	Directors’ prior experience	board \| share \| none	Mean international diversification experienced by directors other than the CEO on other boards during years t−3 through t−1, with the stated recency and employer-firm adjustments.
zhu_chen_2015	Number of international firms tied to the CEO	ceo \| count \| none	Number of firms generating some international revenue that were tied to the CEO during years t−3 through t−1.
zhu_chen_2015	CEO’s prior experience	ceo \| share \| none	Mean international diversification over firms where the CEO held a board position during years t−3 through t−1, weighting years t−1, t−2, and t−3 by 1, 2/3, and 1/3 and multiplying employer-firm observations by two.
Definition: dispersion (CV) of acquisition experience across tied boards (2 measures)
zhu_chen_2015	Variation of directors’ prior experience	board \| continuous \| spread_statistic	Coefficient of variation of other directors’ prior acquisition-emphasis experience values.
zhu_chen_2015	Variation of the CEO’s prior experience	ceo \| continuous \| spread_statistic	Coefficient of variation of the CEO’s prior acquisition-emphasis experience values.
Definition: dispersion (CV) of international experience across tied boards (2 measures)
zhu_chen_2015	Variation of directors’ prior experience	board \| continuous \| spread_statistic	Coefficient of variation of other directors’ prior international-diversification experience values.
zhu_chen_2015	Variation of the CEO’s prior experience	ceo \| continuous \| spread_statistic	Coefficient of variation of the CEO’s prior international-diversification experience values.
Sub-construct: ties between candidate or new director and incumbents
Definition: prior shared board appointments between candidate and incumbents (4 measures)
bednar_et_al_2022	Direct board ties	director \| count \| none	Number of other nonprofit and for-profit boards on which the incumbent director and potential board candidate both held appointments.
bednar_et_al_2022	Direct board ties	director \| count \| none	Number of other nonprofit and for-profit boards on which the incumbent director and potential board candidate both held appointments.	duplicate coding of net_091
guiso_et_al_2026	Contacts	director \| count \| none	Number of firm i's current board members with whom newly hired individual j served on a board during the previous three years.	three-year window variant
zhu_chen_2014	New director’s board ties to other incumbents	director \| count \| none	Number of prior common board appointments between the new director and other members of the focal board.
Definition: first/second-degree professional connection between candidate and incumbents (2 measures)
cai_et_al_2021	Connected (1/0)	director \| binary \| graph_position	Equals one if at least one incumbent director has a first- or second-degree professional connection with the appointee or candidate.
cai_et_al_2021	Connected to non-CEO (1/0)	director \| binary \| graph_position	Equals one if the appointee or candidate is connected only to non-CEO directors of the appointing firm.	connected-to-non-CEO-only cell of same construction
Definition: candidate-incumbent shared employer or near-simultaneous graduation (2 measures)
gormley_et_al_2023	Connection to existing director	director \| binary \| none	Indicator that the newly hired director is connected to at least one incumbent director through simultaneous employment at the same employer or graduation from the same post-secondary institution within one year.
gormley_et_al_2023	Number of connections to existing directors	director \| count \| none	Number of incumbent directors connected to the newly hired director through simultaneous employment at the same employer or graduation from the same post-secondary institution within one year.
Definition: indirect candidate-incumbent ties through shared third director (1 measure)
bednar_et_al_2022	Indirect board ties	director \| count \| graph_position	Count of indirect ties in which incumbent A sits on a board with third director C and candidate B sits on a different board with C.
Definition: director socially connected to other focal-firm directors (1 measure)
cao_et_al_2015	Internal ties	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to 1 if the focal director is socially connected with other directors of the focal firm and 0 otherwise.
Sub-construct: firm-pair shared employment/education/social ties
Definition: firm-pair tie: currently serving together at same company (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Strength CE	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 when at least one individual in one firm has a current-employment connection with at least one individual in the other firm. Two individuals have such a connection if they work in the same company and sit together on its board or top management group.
Definition: firm-pair tie: same school, any time (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	ED Style	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if at least one individual in one firm attended the same school, whether or not at the same time, as at least one individual in the other firm.
Definition: firm-pair tie: same school, graduation within one year (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Strength ED	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 when at least one individual in one firm has an education connection with at least one individual in the other firm. Two individuals are connected when they attended the same school and graduated within one year of each other.
Definition: firm-pair tie: same past employer, any time (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	PE Style	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 if at least one individual in one firm worked for the same past employer, whether or not at the same time, as at least one individual in the other firm.
Definition: firm-pair tie: same past employer, overlapping tenure (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Strength PE	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 when at least one individual in one firm has a past-employment connection with at least one individual in the other firm. A connection requires that two individuals previously worked at the same company at the same time, on the board or in the top management group.
Definition: sum of four firm-pair connection-type dummies (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Strength SNI	firm \| count \| none	Sum of the four binary firm-pair connectivity measures Strength CE, Strength PE, Strength ED, and Strength OA, ranging from zero when the firms share no connection type to four when they share all four types.	sum of four channel dummies; composite kept separate
Definition: firm-pair tie: shared active club/organization membership (1 measure)
fracassi_2017	Strength OA	firm \| binary \| none	Dummy equal to 1 when at least one individual in one firm has an other-activity connection with at least one individual in the other firm. Individuals are connected when they share membership and active roles in clubs, organizations, or charities; temporal overlap is not required because most dates are unavailable.
Sub-construct: multiple directorships
Definition: number of other board seats held by directors (3 measures)
oliver_et_al_2018	Average number of interlocks	board \| continuous \| none	Average across board directors of the number of other boards on which each director sits.
pavicevic_et_al_2026	Board connectedness	board \| count \| none	Annual number of other outside board seats in public firms held by all directors on the focal board.
hasija_et_al_2025	CEO Network	ceo \| count \| none	Number of directorships held by the CEO, entered as its logarithm.	CEO's directorships; subject differs, same seat-count definition
Definition: factor score of tenure and directorship-count proxies (2 measures)
krause_et_al_2016	Average Board Social Capital	board \| continuous \| latent_weighting	For each board-year, the authors calculated the mean across all directors other than the chair for each of the six proxy measures and applied the chair-level factor-scoring coefficients to those means to produce a board social-capital score.	board mean of chair-level factor; aggregation level ignored per rules
krause_et_al_2016	Chair Social Capital	chair \| continuous \| latent_weighting	Factor score for the social-capital factor retained from a principal-axis exploratory factor analysis of six chair-level proxies: years serving on the focal board, years working at the focal firm, total nonfocal boards served on to date, nonfocal boards served on in the focal year, same-four-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year, and same-two-digit-SIC boards served on in the focal year. Factors with eigenvalues of at least one were retained.	composite mixes tenure with directorship counts
Definition: share of multi-board returnee directors from high-donation countries (1 measure)
luo_et_al_2021	Returnee directors from high-donation countries and on multiple boards	board \| share \| none	Number of returnee directors from high-donation countries who serve on multiple boards in the given year divided by total board members.
Sub-construct: ethnic / community ties
Definition: investor-CEO coethnicity from name-based ethnicity probabilities (3 measures)
hjort_et_al_2025	Postcoethnics	director \| binary \| none	Investors who are coethnic with the incoming CEO after a firm changes CEO ethnicity; Figure 1 compares their monthly order imbalance with investors coethnic with neither the outgoing nor incoming CEO.	event-design version of investor-CEO coethnicity
hjort_et_al_2025	CoethnicCEO	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when the investor and the CEO running the firm in the month are relatively likely to belong to the same ethnicity because they share a Likely Ethnicity.
hjort_et_al_2025	CEOCoethnicityIndex	director \| continuous \| none	A zero-to-one ethnic-proximity measure equal to the inner product of the investor's and CEO's vectors of name-by-ethnicity match probabilities.
Definition: board-level coethnicity with investor from name-based classification (2 measures)
hjort_et_al_2025	CoethnicBoard	director \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one when every board member can be classified as likely coethnic or noncoethnic with the investor and the board as a whole is more likely to share the investor's ethnicity than any other ethnicity.
hjort_et_al_2025	BoardCoethnicityIndex	director \| share \| none	The proportion of the firm's board members who are classified as coethnic with the investor using the CoethnicCEO-style Likely Ethnicity match.
Sub-construct: direct interaction ties
Definition: risk leader dialogue with board beyond required reporting (1 measure)
amiraslani_et_al_2025	Board and risk manager communication	board \| binary \| none	Indicator equal to one if the risk-management leader engages board directors in dialogue outside normal reporting requirements and appearances at meetings, and zero otherwise.
Sub-construct: unclassifiable
Definition: operationalization too vague to determine definition (1 measure)
jiang_et_al_2021	Outgoing directors’ social capital	board \| continuous \| graph_position	Social capital of directors leaving the declining firm; the paper does not state how multiple outgoing directors are aggregated or whether the main candidate-centrality construction is reused.	aggregation and construction of departing directors' social capital not stated

Coding pilot

Draft counts from the Dispersion evidence section: gender, a raw count of 18 quantities and 37 definition groups with an effective number of 7.3; expertise, a raw count of 20 quantities and 77 definition groups across 29 sub-constructs with an effective number of 42.7; independence, a raw count of 17 definition groups with an effective number of 3.1; networks, a raw count of 99 groups across 13 sub-constructs with an effective number of 45.7. These figures are a single model's draft. The steps from draft to estimates suitable for publication:

Manual pilot on financial expertise and independence. Financial expertise is the centerpiece (the definition layer does the most work there); independence is the benchmark where we expect low definition dispersion, so it validates the method. Both coauthors independently assign each measure a sub-construct, a quantity, and a definition ID, growing the definition list as they code.
Adjudication becomes rules. Compute agreement, adjudicate disagreements, and write each resolution into an explicit rule. The rule set becomes a versioned coding prompt, the same loop used for the amount/structure classification.
LLM extension by assignment, not pairwise comparison. Pairwise same/different judgments are quadratic in cost and not transitive, so they never yield a partition. Instead the model assigns each remaining record to the adjudicated definition library or proposes a new entry; two independent runs, disagreements adjudicated, accuracy validated on a held-out slice of the manual pilot before any unpiloted construct is trusted.

Edge cases the pilot must settle by explicit rule

Binary attributes and diversity indices. Settled: for a binary attribute, a Blau or entropy index is a deterministic function of the share and is classified as group composition; group heterogeneity is reserved for multi-category attributes. Where an index mixes gender with other traits, the record is classified by what the measure does and flagged.
Polarity. Fraction insiders and fraction independent carry the same information with opposite sign: one definition plus a polarity flag, or the counts double-count complements.
Thresholds. A majority-independent dummy and the independent share are one definition in two forms. Threshold values live only in the operationalization prose (about 460 records carry threshold language), so the pilot extracts them as a column.
Data source. The same classifier concept from BoardEx versus hand-coded proxy statements is one definition with two implementations; report implementation dispersion separately. The data_source field is unnormalized free text (1,616 distinct strings) and needs a cleanup pass first.
Claimed lineage. Measures introduced as "following X et al." sometimes deviate from X; identical constructions sometimes cite nothing. Code lineage as its own column. Whether a citation pins down a construction is a publishable side observation.
Composites. Faultlines and indices built from named constituents are excluded from the pilot; their dispersion is a property of their constituents.
Indeterminate records. Operationalizations the source text does not fully state get an explicit indeterminate code and a reported share. No reconstruction.

Working deliverable

One script generates an Excel workbook and a matching PDF from the coded corpus. Excel: one sheet per pilot construct, one row per measure, typed fields pre-filled and locked, empty columns for sub-construct, quantity, definition ID (a dropdown that grows), polarity, threshold, and notes. Each coauthor codes a copy; a diff script computes agreement and queues disagreements for adjudication. The PDF is a read-only rendering. Ready to build on request.

The two-problem framing

The corpus supports the proposed motivation structure:

The composition-model problem (structural): the field's measures aggregate individual attributes and discard configuration. This is the manuscript's existing Section 5 evidence: 88% of measures are amounts, 12% structural, 19% relational, 34 of 1,969 compare directors within the same board.
The bespoke-operationalization problem (consistency): even within that architecture, measures are not standardized across papers. This is the Dispersion evidence section, and it compounds the structural problem: results built on different definitions do not accumulate.

A new subsection presenting the dispersion table and a subset of the definition-level evidence would follow the manuscript's Section 5.3 and would provide the transition into Section 6 and the companion paper.

A terminology decision before either paper goes out. "Compilational rather than compositional" uses the Kozlowski and Klein multilevel vocabulary, where composition means isomorphic aggregation and compilation means configural emergence. The companion paper's core tool is compositional data analysis, and it represents boards as compositions on a simplex. If the motivation names composition as the problem and the proposed solution is then presented under the name compositional data analysis, readers are likely to conflate the two senses. Options: use "configural" or "relational" for the fix and avoid the Kozlowski-Klein term, or spend a footnote separating the two senses explicitly.

The framework's board-level object is itself an aggregation. It preserves the mixture of director types, not the pairwise configuration among directors. The claim the paper can support is that the director-level representation is retained underneath, so who differs from whom is recoverable at the director grain, and the contextual layer carries the configural information. "We fix the structural problem" without that qualification overclaims.

The architecture claim and the risk of standard proliferation

The relevant failure mode is standard proliferation: a framework introduced to consolidate fifteen existing standards becomes a sixteenth. The question-specific-measures framing is the right defense. Those question-specific measures (financial expertise and restatements, technology expertise and patenting, gender diversity and performance) are built from the attribute matrix and its vocabularies, not from the fitted K=12 types. The release artifact should be the pipeline, the director-year attribute matrix, and the documented defaults, with the fitted types as one product of it. Three supporting points:

Researcher degrees of freedom. The vocabulary maps from raw biography text to categories are unavoidable choices. Every bespoke paper already makes exactly these choices, privately and unreported; the expertise listing shows each paper's implicit classifier. The framework makes the same choices once, in public, with a changelog. The claim is "auditable and common across users", never "choice-free".
Standards win on switching costs. Open data and method are necessary, not sufficient. Adoption comes from a board-year panel that merges on a standard firm key more easily than rebuilding a measure from ISS. The G-index achieved broad adoption in part because it was distributed as a ready-to-merge dataset.
Scope the claim. The framework competes where bespoke proliferation is least defensible: describing and controlling for board composition as a whole. It does not displace construct-specific hypothesis tests.

NMF versus similarity networks

Both approaches answer the same question: given a large set of attributes describing individual directors, how do we reduce those attributes to a small number of director types? Both begin from exactly the same object, the director-year attribute matrix. They differ in which side of that matrix they collapse.

Note on scope: this concerns attribute similarity networks, in which directors are tied by resembling each other. It is distinct from interlock networks, in which directors are tied by shared board service. Interlocks measure relational position rather than intrinsic attributes and, in the current architecture, belong to the contextual layer; they do not compete with NMF.

1 · From one primitive to two different objects

Shared primitive

The director-year attribute matrix. One row per director per year (251,345 rows in the current panel); one column per binary attribute (82 columns across roles, skills, sector experience, career stage, and education and credentials).

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Non-negative matrix factorization Collapse the columns: summarize the attributes.

Step 1 — Factor

Approximate the matrix as the product of two smaller non-negative tables, chosen to reproduce the original as closely as possible. The number of types, K, is set by the researcher. Non-negativity means an attribute can only ever add to a type, never cancel against another.

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Output A — Type profiles

K rows, one per type, each a set of non-negative weights over the 82 named attributes. This is what makes a type sayable: a type loading heavily on CFO role, CPA credential and finance skill is the financial-expert type.

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Output B — Director loadings

One row per director-year: K non-negative weights, normalized to sum to one. A director who is 0.6 financial expert and 0.4 academic advisor is recorded as exactly that.

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Board level

Average the loading rows of the directors sitting on a board. The result is another K-vector of the same kind, so a director, a board, a board's own past and the panel average are all comparable with one metric.

The attribute columns are never discarded, so every object downstream can be read back in attribute terms.

Similarity network Collapse the rows: summarize the directors.

Step 1 — Pairwise similarity

Compare every pair of director rows with a similarity measure — Jaccard (shared attributes over total attributes) for binary data, or cosine. The output is a square director-by-director similarity matrix.

The 82 attribute columns are gone at this step. From here on the object is a relation among directors, not a description of them.

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Step 2 — Sparsify into a graph

A dense square matrix is not yet a network. Keep only strong edges: a similarity threshold, or each director's k nearest neighbours. This step is unavoidable at panel scale, and the cut-off determines which communities appear.

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Step 3 — Partition

Community detection (Louvain, Leiden) searches for the division of the graph that maximizes modularity: within-community edge weight in excess of what a degree-matched random graph would produce. Each director lands in exactly one community.

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Output — Communities as types

One label per director. The type has no profile; it is described afterwards, by returning to the attribute matrix and tabulating what its members happen to have in common — a description the type was not defined by.

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Board level

A count of directors per community: a board of nine is three of type A, two of type B, and so on. Integer-valued, with structural zeros in most cells.

Variants replace the partition step with a spectral embedding or node2vec coordinates. Those return soft coordinates but forfeit the community labels, and they do not aggregate additively to the board.

The asymmetry. NMF yields the similarity network as a by-product: the similarity between two directors is the distance between their loading rows, a comparison in K type dimensions rather than 82 attribute dimensions. A similarity network cannot hand you the type profiles, because the information needed to write them down was discarded at its first step.

2 · Where each approach has the advantage

Marks: ● clear advantage, ◐ partial or qualified, ○ not achieved.

Dimension	Non-negative matrix factorization		Similarity network
Favors NMF
Comparison across levels Can a director, a board, and a board's own past sit in one space and be compared with a single metric? This is the manuscript's fourth desideratum, and the empty column of Table 6.	●	Director loadings and board means are the same kind of object on the same simplex.	○	Hard communities aggregate only to counts of types — precisely the coarseness the catalogue criticizes. Embeddings do not aggregate additively at all.
Mixed membership Directors hold several kinds of experience at once; the paper's premise is that a director is a bundle, not a category.	●	A row of weights. The 0.6/0.4 director is representable without a decision.	○	A partition forces one label. Soft variants exist (mixed-membership blockmodels, BigCLAM), but they are factorizations of the same family — adopting them concedes the point rather than answering it.
Types that can be named Can you state what a type is, or only describe after the fact what its members turned out to share?	●	Each type is a weight vector over named attributes, so the label is a reading of the estimate rather than an addition to it.	○	Communities carry no intrinsic characterization. This is not a shortcoming of Louvain; it follows from discarding the attribute columns at step 1.
Common types across years Does a type mean the same thing in 2010 and 2026?	●	One pooled director-year fit, so types are shared across years by construction.	◐	Year-by-year fits require matching labels across refits. Pooling all director-years is worse: a director's nearest neighbour is almost always themself in the adjacent year, so the graph fragments along individual trajectories.
Feasibility at panel scale 251,345 director-years.	●	Factorizing a sparse 251,345 × 82 matrix is routine.	○	Roughly 3 × 10¹⁰ pairs. Either sparsify — adding a consequential researcher choice — or cluster directors rather than director-years and give up the time dimension the variance decomposition depends on.
Compatibility with compositional analysis The Aitchison geometry the framework runs on requires strictly positive shares.	●	Loadings are near-dense; a small epsilon replacement is enough.	○	Type counts on a nine-person board are small integers with structural zeros in most cells. Log-ratio geometry does not survive that without heavy imputation.
Favors similarity networks
Theoretical grounding Is there a management-theory lineage behind the primitive?	○	None native. The method is borrowed from parts-based decomposition and topic modeling, and is justified here on measurement grounds rather than theoretical ones.	●	Similarity and homophily have an established lineage, and faultline research is built directly on attribute similarity. The grounding attaches to the similarity relation, not to the clustering step: nothing in homophily theory prefers Louvain to a factorization.
Assumption about type structure NMF assumes a small global basis that every director is built from; community detection assumes only local density.	◐	If the underlying structure is many idiosyncratic clusters sharing no common parts, a K-type additive basis misrepresents it.	●	Agnostic as to whether types share parts. This is the one substantive objection that is empirical rather than a matter of preference.
Roughly even
Preserving who differs from whom The catalogue's own finding is that only dyadic procedures are reliably relational, which makes this the dimension where similarity networks compete best.	◐	Available as a distance between loading rows, but in K type dimensions, and it is not currently the paper's headline object.	◐	The primary object, in full attribute detail — but it never reaches a board-level measure without being averaged into a scalar, which is the collapse the catalogue documents in Acharya and Pollock (2021) and Jung et al. (2023).
Explaining the estimator What a referee or a reader has to accept.	◐	A factorization is the less familiar object, but the fit is deterministic given its inputs and the output is one readable table of type profiles.	◐	Jaccard similarity is easy to state, but modularity maximization is a non-convex search with a resolution parameter, a known resolution limit, and run-to-run instability.
Researcher degrees of freedom How many consequential choices, and how visible.	◐	Loss function, K, block weighting.	◐	Similarity metric, sparsification rule, resolution parameter. Comparable in number and in consequence; neither approach is choice-free.
Extensibility Adding an attribute block after the fact.	◐	A refit moves every type.	◐	Similarities move locally, with no global refit. But both approaches sit downstream of the layer that delivers extensibility: the open attribute matrix and its vocabularies. Extensibility is a property of the matrix, not of either summary of it.

3 · Which approach preserves relational structure

This is the dimension on which similarity networks are most competitive, and it is the substantive question behind the choice. A similarity network makes the pairwise comparison its primary object: director to director, who differs from whom, at the dyad. NMF followed by averaging to a board mean is itself an aggregation, and an average discards the configuration among the directors it averages over.

NMF retains the director-level representation underneath the board mean, so the dyadic comparison is recoverable at the director grain, and the contextual layer carries the configural information. The similarity network yields the dyadic object and nothing else; NMF yields the dyadic object, named types, and a board-level measure in the same space. NMF wins the dimension, but on the strength of the director-level representation rather than the board mean. What needs qualifying in the paper is therefore not the choice of estimator but the phrase “we fix the structural problem”: the board-level object is an aggregation, and should be described as one.

4 · Common ground and a comparison appendix

These are not rival paradigms. Symmetric NMF of a director similarity matrix is a relaxation of spectral clustering, and NMF of the attribute matrix is a soft clustering of it; community detection is approximately the hard-assignment limit of a closely related factorization.

The proposal for the call is a comparison appendix: fit both, report where community assignments agree with dominant NMF types, and report the disagreements. It is cheap, it gives the discussion a concrete object instead of a framework argument, it tests the one substantive objection (whether the types share parts), and it lets the paper claim robustness to the choice rather than defend it.

Data: v10 coded corpus (128 papers, 7,601 records; 1,969 main-specification governance measures across 125 papers), loaded through the same corpus loader that builds the manuscript tables; primary constructs only. Form statistics are computed mechanically from the closed-vocabulary fields. Sub-construct, quantity, and definition classifications are a single uncalibrated LLM draft pass, described in the Dispersion evidence section. Nothing in the repository was modified.