The role of business group has become more and more important. The goals of today’s business include pursuing globalization, increasing diversification and creating competitive edge. Thus, this study focuses on whether the characteristics of the board of directors and the structure of ownerships will affect the performance of a business, and determine whether the performance of business group differs from the performance of none business groups. We use 699 listed firms in Taiwan from 2003 to 2007 as study subjects, and the definition of groups from “Business groups in Taiwan”. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the effects of the characteristics of the board of directors and ownership structure on firm performance. The empirical results show that (1) business groups perform much better than none business groups regardless whether we measure performance by market indicators and accounting indicators. (2) Outside directors and institutional ownership are positively related to performance for both group and none group firms. (3) The size of the board is negatively related to performance for both group and none group firms. (4) The dual role of general manager as chairman and insider ownership have different results in different samples.