Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs's board as an outside director in January 2000: a year later she became president of Brown University. For the rest of the decade she apparently managed both roles without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms. Simmons was under fire for having sat on Goldman's compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked? By February the next year Ms. Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said.
2000年1月，Ruth Simmons以外部董事的身份加入了高盛公司的董事会，一年之后，她出任布朗大学校长。在本世纪头十年剩下的时间里，Simmons显然是在没有招致多少批评的情况下，同时应付着这两种角色。不过到2009年底，她却因任职于高盛公司薪酬委员会而受到攻击：她怎么能没有注意到那些巨额奖金的发放呢？到第二年 2月份时，Simmons已离开了董事会。她称只是因为这个职位耗费的时间太多了。
Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased, advisers on a firm's board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive's proposals. If the sky, and the share price is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises.
人们期望外部董事成为公司董事会中能提供帮助、却较少怀有偏见的顾问。在其他领域赢得了财富和声望的外部董事们，被认为拥有足可对首席执行官的提议发表异议的独立性。若是出现天崩地裂、股价下跌的情况，外部董事应当能够在曾经渡过自身危机的基础上提出建议。
The researchers from Ohio University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increased by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. Although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up." Leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms.
来自俄亥俄州的研究者所用的数据库涵盖了1989年到2004年间超过10000家公司和64000名不同的董事。接下来，他们只是检查哪些董事曾经辞职。在离开董事会的理由中，可能性最大的因素是年龄，因此，研究者将关注焦点放在了那些不满70岁董事的“意外”离职上。他们发现在意外离任后，其所在公司随后必须重述盈余的概率增加了近两成，卷入联邦集体诉讼案的可能性也会增大，而股票的表现也可能更糟。公司越大，这种效应往往也越强。尽管外部董事离任与该公司随后的糟糕表现之间的关联暗示着这一点，但这并不意味着此类董事总是在跳出正在沉没之船。他们常常是在“另觅良枝”，即离开风险更大、规模更小的公司，前往规模更大、更加稳定的公司。
But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms. Simmons, once again very popular on campus.
不过研究者们相信，如果外部董事在利空消息出现之前离开公司，他们将能更轻松地避免自己的名声受损，即便历史回顾表明错误正是发生在他们担任董事期间，情况也是如此。希望在困难时期留住其外部董事的公司，也许得创造出激励措施。否则，外部董事将会效仿Simmons女士的做法，重返学校仍能受欢迎。