獨立董事制度在國外行之已久，自從發生安隆（Enron）、世界通訊（WorldCom）等企業弊案後，突然受到極大的重視。因此，我國台灣證券交易所及櫃檯買賣中心也在 2002 年 2 月 22 日正式引進「獨立董事制度」，強制要求初次申請上市上櫃之公司須設置獨立董事至少 2 人，期望以此制度改善積習已久的公司治理弊端。本研究主要在探討獨立董事制度與企業經營績效之關係，研究是以2002 年至2006 年所有上市櫃公司為對象，利用普通最小平方法（OLS）測試獨立董事對企業經營績效之影響，且考量獨立董事之設置可能並非外生變數，因此本研究採用兩階段最小平方法（2SLS）進行分析。實證發現，設立獨立董事之公司，有較高之經營績效，且公司績效愈高，公司也愈願意藉由設立獨立董事之方式向市場傳遞公司品質及未來績效佳的訊息。總而言之，獨立董事制度與企業經營績效兩者互為正向影響。
After Enron and WorldCom scandals, issues on Independent Director System are abruptly getting more attention. The forced enactment made by Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation and Gretai Securities Market on February 22, 2002. It claims all new listed corporations to employ at least 2 independent directors in order to enhance corporate governance in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between independent director system and operating performance. The data was gathered from those firms listed on Stock Exchange and Gretai Securities Market of Taiwan since 2002 to 2006. We use Ordinary Least Squares to analyze our data sets , and try to explore the effect of independent director system to operating performance . Besides, we also adopt Two-Stage Least Squares regression to discuss the effects of operating performance to independent director system. The empirical results appeared two important conclusions. First, independent directors indeed facilitate firms to enhance operating Performance. Second, if firms’ financial performance is well, they will set up the independent directors to signal good information to every investor.
