The impact of corporate governance and managerial attributes on mutual funds’ risk-taking, return and market share

This thesis examines the effect of board characteristics on mutual funds’ risk-taking, return, and market share in the Chinese mutual fund industry, over the period of 2005 to 2015. The thesis investigates the impact of ownership structure on funds’ return and market share in the Chinese mutual fund industry between 2005 and 2015. Moreover, the thesis examines the effect of fund managerial attributes on mutual fund performance, as proxied by efficiency and risk-adjusted return during the period from 2005 to 2013. Firstly, this thesis is the first study to investigate the interplay between board characteristics and risk-taking behavior of Chinese mutual funds. Due to data limitation, we manage to collect manually the governance variables, for instance board size, board structure and gender. We adopt two different measurements of funds’ risk-taking, namely funds’ total risk and concentration risk. Larger board size leads to a lower stock concentration risk. A greater percentage of independent directors in a board are associated with a lower bond concentration risk. In addition, the representation of female directors on a board not only increases total risk, but also increases concentration risk.