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Research on public and non-profit organizations has recently shifted towards the main body of research on governance of organizations and many public and non-profit scholars focused on that. Actually, public and non-profit organizations are important elements of the whole spectrum of organizations. But in the meanwhile, their study, within the governance research, has kept aside. Moreover, with the scope and the aim of the governance research, public and non-profit governance research fitted to this new environment, focusing on performance issues, as private organizations do.

Purpose – Starting from public and corporate governance literature, the chapter aims to evidence the opportunity in exploring board of directors in public organisations, where the focus is on a behavioural perspective.Design/methodology/approach – Presenting two levels of analysis: (a) the relationship between the board and ‘external’ stakeholders, and (b) the relationship between the board and managers, a framework is proposed evidencing which factors (variables, constructs and concepts) logically should be considered as part of the explanation of boards’ role in public organisations’ innovation.Findings – The chapter provides support for a board model in public governance, evidencing both the opportunity to assume a multi-paradigm perspective and the existing similarities and differences between boards in public and corporate governance approach. It is possible, for example, to empirically apply the framework both to different national context and to different levels of public organisations.Originality/value of chapter – The chapter presents theoretical perspectives on governance research, and both some pioneer studies in public sector research and some of the major contribution in corporate governance studies. All of them have been put together, introducing a new stream of research in the debate on the micro (organisational) level of governance in public sector.