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.

    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.

    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 increases 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.

    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.

答案精析：根据题干中的Ohio University和surprise departure可定位至原文第三段第四、五句。这两句指出，外部董事突然离职后，公司需要重申收益的可能性上涨20%，卷入联邦集体诉讼的几率上涨，股票表现变差。C选项是对原文中the stock is likely to perform worse的同义转述，故为正确答案。

错项排除：A选项中more stable是根据第三段最后一句中more stable设置的干扰项，原文提到外部董事离开更危险的小公司，寻求更加稳定的大公司，并不是说外部董事离开后，公司会变得更加稳定，故A选项错误。B选项是根据原文中earnings increased by 20%设置的干扰项，原文中increased的主语是the possibilities，并非earnings，故B选项错误。原文只是提到公司卷入诉讼的几率增加，并未提及公司在诉讼中的表现如何，故D选项错误。