From the Boardroom to the Marketplace: Diversity of Board Director Networks and Consumer Brand Perceptions
(A2026-134122)

AUTHORS

Anastasia Buyalskaya, HEC Paris

ABSTRACT

Research on board diversity has largely focused on financial performance, yielding mixed results. We redirect attention to consumer-facing marketing outcomes – brand awareness and brand attitudes – as critical indicators of firm success. Integrating the value-in-diversity perspective from organizational behavior literature, we argue that diverse corporate boards enhance marketing outcomes by improving the quality of internal decision-making. Using data from BoardEx and the BRAND database, we analyze more than 350 firms across two time points (2020 and 2024). Results show a consistent, robust positive relationship between board directors’ average network size and firms’ brand awareness and brand attitudes, pointing to the importance of cognitive diversity in driving marketing outcomes. These findings introduce brand-level metrics as a novel dependent variable in the board diversity literature, offering new insight into how leadership composition shapes marketplace perceptions. We conclude with implications for marketing strategy and corporate governance.