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Through an inductive approach, I examine the process in which autonomy is exercised in the board-executive director relationship. A further contribution of the current study is the exploration of the antecedents of the delegation process.

Utilizing the benefits of semi-structured critical incident interviews, and analysis of organizational documentation, I study the process in which autonomy is exercised in the board-executive director relationship.

Evidence is found within organizations of times when it is clear that board members understand that there are boundaries to their role, respecting this autonomy, and times when board members overstep their role. Next, in the current study, I explore the antecedents of the delegation process, including identification of role boundaries, role clarity, clear expectations, trust in the executive director, and trust in the governance control systems.

Autonomy has historically been examined within seemingly paradoxical frameworks; this has included investigating autonomy as part of the definition of laissez faire leadership, as a key feature of transformational leadership and as one component of the jobs characteristics model, while others have characterized it as a stream of shared leadership. In the current project, the process of providing autonomy takes on characteristics consistent with both vertical leadership and distributed leadership. The executive director similarly plays a role in maintaining previously defined role boundaries, which is evidence of bidirectional influence. However, the board plays a disproportionately larger role in delineating and maintaining role boundaries – characteristics I demonstrate as being consistent with transformational leadership.

In this chapter, I provide a refreshing divergence from typical board prescriptions, in that I examine the board-executive director relationship through a behavioural lens. A clear understanding of the mutual influence and antecedents of autonomy are important to practitioners seeking to enhance performance through the delineation of roles.

Positivist deductive research on transformational leadership brings along with it 25 years of researcher presuppositions. Such research not only suggests that a transformational leader’s influence is unidirectional but also that transformational leadership theory is a universal theory. In this chapter, I inductively seek to examine board-executive director interactions, free from the shackles of existing theory.

The current chapter uses an inductive research approach to the collection and analysis of the empirical material. By being open to surprises in the empirical material, I am able to explore behaviors and relationships, while analyzing a specific context – the nonprofit board-executive director relationship.

The current study finds evidence that individualized consideration in a governance model frequently occurs in the opposite direction. Despite organizational documents promoting a hierarchical structure, evidence of top-down, collegiality, and bottom-up individualized consideration suggests hierarchical boundaries are commonly crossed in the decision making process.

Results of this exploratory study suggest that in a governance context, hierarchical actors do not fit neatly into the boxes defined by 30 years of research on transformational leadership theory, suggesting that the leadership process is more complex than portrayed by current dichotomizations. The findings provide support for recent criticisms of transformational leadership theory.

The findings of this chapter provide evidence of the benefits of eliciting input from organizational actors at multiple hierarchical levels. The empirical evidence provides practitioners with a fresh perspective on board roles and relationship, diverging from the traditional structural prescriptions.

The importance of hospital board engagement in the work of governing healthcare quality has been demonstrated in the literature. Research into influences on effective corporate governance has traditionally focused on board architecture. Emerging research is bringing to light the importance of governance dynamics. This paper contributes to emerging research through highlighting how communication and leadership underpin effective engagement in governing healthcare quality.

A comparative case study of eight Australian public hospitals was undertaken involving document review, interviews and observations. Case studies were allocated into high- or low-engagement categories based on evidence of governance processes being undertaken, in order to compare and contrast influencing factors. Thematic analysis was undertaken to explore how communication and leadership influence healthcare governance.

Several key components of communication and leadership are shown to influence healthcare quality governance. Clear logical narratives in reporting, open communication, effective questioning and challenge from board members are important elements of communication found to influence engagement. Leadership that has a focus on healthcare excellence and quality improvement are aligned and promote effective meeting processes is also found to foster governance engagement. Effective engagement in these communication and leadership processes facilitate valuable reflexivity at the governance level.

The findings highlight the way in which boards and senior managers can strengthen governance effectiveness through attention to key aspects of communication and leadership.

The case study approach allows the exploration of communication and leadership in greater depth than previously undertaken at the corporate governance level in the healthcare setting.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how board leadership affects the board strategic involvement in private firms in Kenya and how CEO power moderates this relationship.

The authors used a Kenyan data set to investigate what makes boards in private firms get involved in strategy. Survey data derived from a sample of 186 CEOs of private firms were used, and the hypotheses were tested using moderated regression analysis.

The results indicate that board members’ knowledge, board chairman’s leadership efficacy, board members’ personal motivation and board members’ background all have a positive and significant effect on board strategy involvement. The authors also found that CEO power moderates the relationship between board leadership and strategy involvement. The study concludes that when the CEO wields immense power, the board tends to become passive and to submit to the direction of the CEO.

The study adds value to the understanding of the effect of the board leadership on strategic involvement in private firms and how CEO power influences this relationship, particularly in a developing country like Kenya.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and effective board governance.

This study applied a model of emotional intelligence competencies to the practice domains of school boards. A board self‐assessment questionnaire measured board practice domains for the presence or absence of 18 emotional intelligence competencies defined in an emotional competence inventory. Inter‐rater reliabilities were established and confirmed. Current and former school board members in two urban areas rank‐ordered the most critical emotional intelligence competencies for effective board governance and offered explanations for their most highly‐rated competencies.

Emotional intelligence is a critical factor for effective school boards. A set of six core competencies are universal across the six board practice domains: transparency; achievement; initiative; organizational awareness; conflict management; and teamwork and collaboration. Each board practice domain is also characterized by one or two key emotional intelligence competencies.

First, one model of school board leadership was used. Future studies should examine additional models of effective board practice for their relationships with emotional intelligence in order to extend the generalizability of these results. Second, there has been some debate regarding the substantive nature of the emotional intelligence construct.

The six practice domains in the school board effectiveness model are fundamental elements for all boards to develop in order to become more effective governing bodies.

This paper identifies a novel application of emotional intelligence leadership competencies to the work of effective governance boards.

This paper develops a theoretical framework to guide future inquiry into board governance of independent schools.

The authors' approach is to integrate literatures related to corporate and educational boards, motivation, leadership and group processes that are appropriate for conceptualizing independent school board governance processes.

Shows that the institutional role of an independent school board is likely to be quite different, and considerably more significant than the role of a board of a systemic school.

This paper develops an original theoretical framework that will provide a sound basis for investigation of an important but neglected aspect of educational administration in Australia.

Board diversity has been a hotly debated topic in the field of corporate governance. The paper examines the role of board chairperson and its moderating effect on the relationship between job-related diversity and boards’ strategic tasks performance. The purpose of this paper is to add on our body of knowledge about the impact of job-related diversity on boards’ strategic tasks performance.

The paper applies the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to examine survey responses from chief executive officers (CEOs). Both the measurement model and structural model have obtained good results, supporting the appropriateness of using the SEM approach.

The findings suggest that there is a positive association between job-related diversity and boards’ strategic tasks performance, which is moderated by a chairperson’s leadership efficacy and the option of a former-CEO as board chair.

To achieve the intended effect of job-related diversity in boards, policymakers need to be mindful about the importance of the board chairperson. Board chairperson’s characteristics such as leadership efficacy and a former-CEO experience would amplify the positive effect of diversity.

This research paper contributes to the literature on board diversity, board leadership and strategic management of firms. Findings validated researchers’ concern about the negligence of examining moderating factors in board diversity research. Moreover, results echo the concern that board leadership research should shift the attention from structural aspects to the behavioral issues. Finally, this study is the first to show the positive influence of a board chairperson in disseminating benefits of a diverse board.

Boards presently are considered the most critical component in improving corporate governance (CG). Board diversity is increasingly being recommended as a tool for enhancing firm performance. Academic research and regulatory action regarding board diversity are focussed mainly on gender and ethnic composition of boards. However, the perspective of board members on board diversity and its impact is mostly missing. Moreover, while strategic leadership perspective suggests that a broader set of upper echelon’s characteristics may shape their actions, empirical evidence investigating the impact of less-explored attributes of diversity is almost non-existent. While the research on the input–output relationship between board diversity and firm performance remains equivocal, an intervening relationship between board diversity and board effectiveness needs to be understood. The purpose of this paper is to address all three limitations and explore the subject from board members’ perspective.

The paper presents the findings of qualitative, exploratory research conducted by interviewing 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies. The data are analysed thematically.

The findings of the research suggest that board members of FTSE 350 companies consider the diversity of functional experience to be a critical requirement for boards’ role-effectiveness. Functionally diverse boards manage external dependencies more effectively and challenge assumptions of the executive more efficiently, thus improving CG. The findings significantly contribute to the literature on board diversity, as well as to strategic leadership theory and other applicable theories. The research is conducted with a relatively small but elite and difficult to approach set of 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies.

The paper makes a unique and significant contribution to praxis by presenting the perspective of practitioners of CG – board members. The findings may encourage board nomination committees to seek board diversity beyond the gender and ethnic characteristics of directors. The findings may also be relevant for policy formulation, as they indicate that functionally diverse boards have improved effectiveness in a range of board roles.

Board diversity is about building a board that accurately reflects the make-up of the population and stakeholders of the society where the company operates. The aim of board diversity is to cultivate a broad range of attributes and perspectives that reflects real-world demographics as boards need to continue to earn their “licence to operate in society” as organisations have a responsibility to multiple constituents and stakeholders, including the community and the wider society within which they exist. Building social capital through diversity has value in the wider context of modern society and achieving social justice.

The paper makes an original and unique contribution to strategic leadership theory by strengthening the argument of the theory. The paper explores beyond widely researched attributes of gender and ethnicity on boards and explores the impact of a less-researched characteristic of directors – their functional experience. Moreover, the paper opens the “black box” of CG – boards, and presents the perspectives of board members. The findings indicate that board members in FTSE 350 boards define diversity more broadly than academics and regulatory agencies often do.

In recent years, increasing scholarly attention has been directed towards the field of governing bodies research. However, little attention has been paid to the behavioural perspective on studying public boards. Aiming to fulfil this gap this paper offers a review of the international literature addressing boards behaviour within the unique organizational setting of public sector.

Considering as behavioural studies those publications focusing on actors, processes, decision-making, relationships and interaction inside and outside the boardroom, 91 papers were analysed. Adopting the framework provided by Huse (2007), the papers are classified following four behavioural dimensions/blocks which are crucial to understand board dynamics: board members, interactions, structures and leadership, decision-making culture.

The literature review shows the increasing production – in the last years – on the theoretical issues related to the behavioural perspective in public governance literature. The most relevant part of these contributions addresses the theoretical dimensions of the board member’s characteristics and of structural leadership.

The manuscript reveals the need to adopt a more organizational approach for studying the behavioural categories and levels of analysis proposed by public governance literature. Moreover, the article evidences some possible directions for future research that might further contribute to enrich the ‘behavioural governance perspective’ in public organizations.

As the need for effective physician leaders caring for underserved populations grows, it is important to initiate interventions for medical professionals early in their education. Board experience on a student-run free clinic serving vulnerable populations within the community has the potential to educate medical students in a hands-on environment. This paper aims to determine if serving as a leader of a student-run free clinic impacts leadership skills and future leadership goals of medical students.

Medical students leading a student-run free clinic completed an anonymous electronic survey to determine how this experience affected their teamwork skills, interprofessional leadership skills and future leadership career goals. The survey consisted of 12 items to which students responded with how closely they agreed via a five-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Descriptive statistics are reported.

From the 46 students (42.2% response rate) responding to the survey, 95.45% had a previous leadership experience and 89.2% expressed previous interest in a leadership position. Students scored on average 4.36 (out of 5) for improvement in teamwork skills, 4.34 (out of 5) for improvement in interprofessional skills and 3.88 (out of 5) for impact on future leadership career goals.

This study suggests that service on a student-run free clinic improves teamwork and interprofessional leadership skills as well as future leadership plans of medical students in an underserved vulnerable population environment. Other institutions could use student-run free clinics for early development of effective leaders in medical health care for the vulnerable population.