Foreigners in the boardroom: The implications of attitudes toward immigration and conservatism in firms' sub-national context

International Business (IB) research has surveyed firms' internationalization by examining the geographical dispersion of their sales and assets. However, less attention has been devoted to an important facet of their internationalization: the globalization of boards of directors. Drawing on institutional theory, we study the determinants of board foreign diversity by focusing on firms' sub-national socio-cultural context. We theorize on factors such as: attitudes toward immigration and conservatism that may impact the legitimacy of certain governance practices and may exert an influence on firms' propensity to internationalize their boards. Using a sample of S&P1500 from 2004 to 2014, we find support for our theory after using several controls. By bringing to the fore the interplay between sub-national factors and the globalization of boards, our study offers several implications for IB research. More broadly, our research delves into factors related to firms' sub-national environment that are likely to challenge their internationalization.