This study examines how cognitive categorization by host-country investors give rise to negative spillovers among host-country foreign-listed firms from the same home country when one of these foreign-listed firms discloses a financial reporting irregularity. This study further examines how attributes of host-country independent directors mitigate such negative spillover effects through signaling fulfilment of their fiduciary duties. Our results based on Chinese foreign-listed firms on the Singapore Stock Exchange from 2007–2014 reveal that host-country independent directors increase spillover effects among foreign-listed Chinese firms from financial reporting irregularities. However, such increase is attenuated when these directors signal fulfilment of their fiduciary duties through home-country, industry, or task-related experiences, and the observed mitigating effect is stronger when they possess a combination of these experiences.
