For our Barrett Honors thesis, our team decided to complete the Founders Lab thesis pathway. Founders Lab offers Barrett students the opportunity to spend their year working on developing entrepreneurial ideas into innovative new businesses by designing not only a business model, but the marketing, sales, and financial models of it as well. This team-based thesis/creative project empowers Barrett students to find solutions to a challenge and gain valuable experience launching a new business of their own.

This thesis analyzes the relationship between diversity within U. S. boards of directors and overall firm performance. In the summer of 2020, various political and social movements erupted, fighting against police brutality and racial violence. These events were followed by an influx of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) frameworks across corporate America. It was becoming increasingly clear that diversity within company leadership was lacking. A company’s board of directors, who is responsible for creating value for shareholders, was not an accurate representation of the people it served. First, I will begin by discussing the current state of diversity in corporate boards by discussing reasons firms diversify, benefits and risks of a diverse board, and major barriers to diversification efforts. A main goal of directors is to maximize shareholder return, which prompts the question: is there a financial benefit to having directors of different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives? In the second part of my thesis, I explore the correlation of board compositions and the company’s financial performance through a study of 45 Fortune 500 companies. Previous studies have mixed results; some studies concluded that there is a positive correlation, some found a negative correlation, and others were inconclusive. While the results of my study did not demonstrate that a relationship between firm performance and diversity exists, I want to emphasize that it does not mean that diverse boards do not contribute at all to the success of the board. There are various factors that contributed to my results, but regardless of my findings, I believe that further research of this topic is necessary and will be beneficial for those in corporate governance.

In the end, an increase in repurchases of company stock will also influence the rate of dividends to increase. This means, an investor should not necessarily worry about the dividends they receive, but rather to see if the company is making profit at a consistent rate and reinvesting into value-added activities. Through the major pillars of finance, technology, legal, and human resources, the budget for reinvestment can be optimized by investing into these respective categories with percentages that are mindful of the specific companies needs and functions. Any firm that chooses to ensure proven methods of growth will enact a combination of these four verticals. A larger emphasis on finance will branch out efficiency in the entire organization, as finance control everything from the toilet paper to the acquisitions the company is making. The more technology is used to reduce redundancy and inefficient or costly operations, the more capability the organization will have. IT, however, comes with its technical challenges; having a team on-hand or even outsourced, to solve the critical problems to help the business continue operation. Over-reliance into technology can be detrimental to a business as well if clear processes are not set about straight to counteract problems the business will face like IT ticketing systems or recovery and continuity support. Therefore, technology will require a larger chunk of attention as well.

The upcoming legal and HR investments a company will make will depend upon its current position and thus the restructuring will differ for every firm. Each company has its own flavour and style of work. In that regard, the required legal counsel will vary; different problems will require different solutions for risk control and management, which are often professionally advised by intelligent corporate counsel. This ability to hire efficient legal counsel would not arise in the first place if a firm were to give out dividends; the leftover profit would have gone towards the shareholders and not back into growing the equity of the business. Lastly, nothing is possible without the contribution of people, and their efforts. A quality that long-lasting, successful businesses have, is they are investing in their people and development. Paying salaries, insurances, bonuses, all requires extra capital that is needed to be set aside in order to grow human capital. Good people, better people. There are qualities for each role that need to be defined and a process for attracting talent needs to be invested in. This process can also include outsourcing to an external firm who specializes in these strategies. By retaining profits internally, the company is able to stretch its legs to have further reach upon the market they work in. Financially and statistically, dividends are likely to grow as well with the increase in equity due to the increase in security an investor feels with more cash reserve and liquidity within the company.

All in all, a company should not be pressured into giving out periodic payments in predetermined timeframes, in other words a dividend, to investors even when they are insisting. Rather, pitch and prove, a new method for reinvestment within the company that will raise the value of the company, through proven methods like the value chain model, to increase the equity in the company. By expanding the scope and capability, the company is allowing for a larger target market which will reap more benefits; none of it would be possible if it had continued to give out large percentages of capital to investors as dividends. Companies, and investors, should not be worried about dividends at all as a matter of fact; an increase in stock buyback, in other words reinvesting into the company, will increase the rate of dividends anyway, due to increased confidence and capital within the company.

In the 21st century economy, life moves pretty fast, and change is happening all around us. For example, it was common to drive to shopping malls with your friends or family and spend the whole afternoon browsing through hundreds of items until you found the perfect purchase. Or, only a few months ago, the entire world was put on lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19, which caused a recession when consumers stopped spending as much to start saving. Americans also used to enjoy their loud, gas-guzzling cars and trucks to get them from place to place. Now what changed, and why? The study of economics justifies how we, as human, fundamentally live and make choices every day. As we notice the results of our choices, we may continue to do the same the next day, temporarily go another route, or alter our behavior permanently. This framework presents the concept of innovation. By applying this logic to the business world, I will attempt to analyze and defend why the innovations of e-commerce, COVID-19 vaccines, and electric vehicles were the natural cause of society changing perspective to move forward toward a better tomorrow.