For trisubstituted alkenes such as 1, boron is predominantly placed on the less substituted carbon. The minor product, in which the boron atom is placed on the more substituted carbon, is usually produced in less than 10%. A notable case with lower regioselectivity is styrene, and the selectivity is strongly influenced by the substituent on the para position.
Hydroboration of 1,2-disubstituted alkenes, such as a cis or trans olefin, produces generally a mixture of the two organoboranes of comparable amounts, even if the substituents are very different in terms of steric bulk. For such 1,2-disubstituted olefins, regioselectivity can be observed only when one of the two substituents is a phenyl ring. In such cases, such as trans-1-phenylpropene, the boron atom is placed on the carbon adjacent to the phenyl ring. The observations above indicate that the addition of H-B bond to olefins is under electronic control rather than steric control.