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Article
Publication date: 6 May 2021

Stefan Peij and Pieter-Jan Bezemer

This study aims to examine the core challenges facing company secretaries in a two-tier board context. This study focuses on the key factors contributing to these challenges and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the core challenges facing company secretaries in a two-tier board context. This study focuses on the key factors contributing to these challenges and how company secretaries can effectively address them.

Design/methodology/approach

An analysis of the narratives provided by 291 Dutch company secretaries in response to a series of open-ended questionnaire questions led to insights into the key challenges company secretaries face in their day-to-day work.

Findings

Company secretaries perceive a myriad of factors contributing to pressures on their time, the need to work for multiple organizational bodies and the processing of information. They believe process interventions and social interventions are needed to alleviate these issues.

Research limitations/implications

The research highlights the need to deeply study boards from a holistic and systems point of view that recognizes the various actors, such as the company secretary, and their relationships in a boardroom context. Furthermore, the research shows how the two-tier board model may complicate these relational dynamics owing to the formal separation of decision management from decision control.

Practical implications

This study identifies various pragmatic ways to address the core challenges facing company secretaries so as to improve their contributions to decision-making at the apex of organizations.

Originality/value

This study sheds light on an important organizational actor (i.e. the company secretary) that hitherto has received scant attention in the governance literature.

Details

Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 January 2014

Pieter-Jan Bezemer, Stefan Peij, Laura de Kruijs and Gregory Maassen

This study seeks to explore how non-executive directors address governance problems on Dutch two-tier boards. Within this board model, challenges might be particularly difficult

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Abstract

Purpose

This study seeks to explore how non-executive directors address governance problems on Dutch two-tier boards. Within this board model, challenges might be particularly difficult to address due to the formal separation of management boards' decision-management from supervisory boards' decision-control roles.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire among non-executive directors provide unique insights into three major challenges in the boardrooms of two-tier boards in The Netherlands.

Findings

The study indicates that non-executive directors mainly experience challenges in three areas: the ability to ask management critical questions, information asymmetries between the management and supervisory boards and the management of the relationship between individual executive and non-executive directors. The qualitative in-depth analysis reveals the complexity of the contributing factors to problems in the boardroom and the range of process and social interventions non-executive directors use to address boardroom issues with management and the organization of the board.

Practical implications

While policy makers have been largely occupied with the “right” board composition, the results highlight the importance of adequately addressing operational challenges in the boardroom. The results emphasize the importance of a better understanding of board processes and the need of non-executive directors to carefully manage relationships in and around the boardroom.

Originality/value

Whereas most studies have focussed on regulatory initiatives to improve the functioning of boards (e.g. the independence of the board), this study explores how non-executive directors attempt to enhance the effectiveness of boards on which they serve.

Article
Publication date: 26 March 2018

Meng Deng, Yunyi Wang and Peijing Li

The purpose of this paper is to provide the details of developments to research works in the distribution characteristics of the air gaps within firefighters’ clothing and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide the details of developments to research works in the distribution characteristics of the air gaps within firefighters’ clothing and research methods to evaluate the effect of air gaps on the thermal protective performance of firefighters’ clothing.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the distribution of air gaps within firefighters’ clothing was first analyzed, and the air gaps characteristics were summarized as thickness, location, heterogeneity, orientation and dynamics. Then, the evaluation of the air gap on the thermal protective performance of fighters’ clothing was reviewed for both experimental and numerical studies.

Findings

The air gaps within clothing layers and between clothing and skin play an important role in determining the thermal protective performance of firefighters’ protective clothing. It is obvious that research works on the effects of actual air gaps entrapped in firefighters’ clothing on thermal protection are comparatively few in number, primarily focusing on static and uniform air gaps at the fabric level. Further studies should be conducted to define the characteristic of air gap, deepen the understand of mechanism of heat transfer and numerically simulate the 3D dynamic heat transfer in clothing to improve the evaluation of thermal protective performance provided by the firefighters’ clothing.

Practical implications

Air gaps within thermal protective clothing play a crucial role in the protective performance of clothing and provide an efficient way to provide fire-fighting occupational safety. To accurately characterize the distribution of air gaps in firefighters’ clothing under high heat exposure, the paper will provide guidelines for clothing engineers to design clothing for fighters and optimize the clothing performance.

Originality/value

This paper is offered as a concise reference for researchers’ further research in the area of the effect of air gaps within firefighters’ clothing under thermal exposure.

Details

International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-6222

Keywords

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