4.5.4 Conclusion

The agency theory and TCE theory with their conjectured positive effect of board independence on financial company performance are neither confirmed nor rejected by the sixteen studies in this section. The same applies to the stewardship theory. All the studies report positive relationships and negative relationships as well as neutral relationships between board independence and financial company performance. In other words, the studies in this section do not reach consensus on the relationship. This implies that the attributed importance of independence cannot be supported by evidence from these studies. The differences are caused by different techniques within one study and different performance measures. The next section formulates an overall conclusion on the relationship between board independence and financial performance.