THE BOARDS FUNCTIONAL EMPHASIS A CONTINGENCY APPROACH

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Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin ORCID logo

https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv4i2art2

Abstract

The understanding of the board of a corporation and its behavior is limited, despite the board’s societal importance. We present a contingency approach to the board’s functional emphasis, considering a fourth function in addition to monitoring, decision making, and service or resource provision. The additional function is conflict resolution (or principal identification). The approach contrasts with mainstream research by assuming that the firm is a nexus of investments, avoiding the empirical assumption that the shareholder is the sole principal. We derive propositions that are not restricted to any empirical category of a corporation, and address praxis implications for managing functional disharmony.

Keywords: The Board, Functional Emphasis, Conflict Resolution Function, Functional disharmony

How to cite this paper: Collin, S.-O. (2008). The boards functional emphasis a contingency approach. Corporate Board: role, duties and composition, 4(2), 24-39. https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv4i2art2