International Business Research; Vol. 9, No. 8; 2016 ISSN 1913-9004 E-ISSN 1913-9012 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 37 Board Profile and its Influence on the Stock Value of Oil Companies and Gas Sávio de Luna Pinto 1 , Aline Alves de Andrade 1 , Roselaine Cristina Borges 1 , Celso Machado Jr. 1 1 School of Management, Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas, São Paulo, Brazil Correspondence: Sávio de Luna Pinto, Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas, São Paulo, Brazil, Av. Liberdade 749 -7 o andar CEP: 01503-001, São Paulo, Brazil. Tel: 3209-4589. E-mail: savio.luna.pinto@gmail.com Received: May 11, 2016 Accepted: May 27, 2016 Online Published: June 12, 2016 doi:10.5539/ibr.v9n8p37 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v9n8p37 Abstract This article identifies the profile of the boards of the ten largest companies in the Oil and Gas industry on NASDAQ and the variation of their stocks. The research contributes to the study developed by Andrade (2009) which established the relationship between corporate governance and market value in Brazil. Additionally, Connell and Cramer (2010) studied the advice of Ireland companies, point out the importance of analyzing the board's composition and its influence on the organization's performance in the stock market in different segments. The method was a qualitative analysis of the board, and the correlation of the board with the variation and point that studies in a number of other countries generally fail to report any significant association between board composition and firm performance. The research information shows that the best performing companies have common characteristics: advice with fewer members; age diversity of members and specifically trained in master. These characteristics capable of being incorporated by the companies and that give power to favorable conditions for companies, for shareholders and for society in general. Keywords: corporate governance, stock exchange, board members 1. Introduction Corporate governance is an important tool for companies to clearly show their performance to the market (OECD, 2015). Disclosure of performance indicators, is positioned as one way to show that performance, enabling the reduction of information asymmetry between managers and shareholders (Pereira et al., 2010). The identification and control of indicators, to be disclosed, is one of the board's responsibilities due to the need for shareholders to have means to analyze the company's performance (Schwartz-Ziv; Weisbach, 2012). In this context, the profile of board members is an item of attention to analyze in order to identify their influence on the behavior of the company's stocks. The oil and gas sector is an important activity that involves various types of transactions. In Brazil the oil and gas sector accounts for 13% of Gross Domestic Product GDP (PETROBRAS, 2016) and its influence is significant. With greater or lesser participation, it is possible to infer that this activity has significant impact on the economy of many countries. Despite the importance of the oil and gas segment to countries this activity is performed by companies. It is noteworthy that there are cases where governments exert much influence on the control of companies in the segment, but even in this case the end result of the activity is linked to the performance of companies. This context provides the purpose of this research, that is to identify whether the profile of the board interferes with the performance of ten Oil and Gas company stocks listed on NASDAQ. The analysis covers the period from January 2010 to September 2015. Besides this introduction, this study presents a theoretical framework, the methodology used, the presentation and analysis of data with the discussion and closing remarks. 2. Theoretical Frame of Reference According to Ribeiro (2007), the capital structure of American business is divided so that even the controller does not have a significant portion of stocks. Ribeiro (2007) sets out the need for a professional board to manage the company and reduce conflict problems. With this context, many American companies are managed by professional managers, not by their owners, or group of shareholders. Facing non-participation of the owners in daily activities and decisions of organizations, the shareholders have their interests represented in the companies through the board. Among the existing studies on the board, a study by Martins