The Influence of Board and Audit Committee Characteristics on Firm Performance among Malaysia’s Top 100 Public Listed Companies

This study examines the impact of board and audit committee characteristics on the performance of Malaysia’s top 100 publicly listed companies. Specifically, it examines how board size, board gender diversity, board meeting frequency, audit committee size, and audit committee independence affect firm performance, as proxied by Tobin’s Q. Drawing upon agency theory and resource dependence theory, the analysis employs financial data extracted from Bloomberg database, with multiple regression analysis conducted to ascertain the associations between governance attributes and market performance. The findings reveal that both board size and board meeting frequency exhibit a significant and negative association with firm performance, suggesting that excessively large boards and frequent meetings may lead to inefficiencies and lower firm performance. These results underscore the importance of optimal board composition and efficient governance structures in enhancing firm value within the Malaysian corporate landscape. This study contributes to the literature by using Tobin’s Q, which offers a more forward-looking measure and addresses the time gap for the most recent year, 2024, on the relationship between CG and firm performance.