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Inside the boardroom: exploring board member interactions

Pieter-Jan Bezemer (School of Accountancy, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia)
Gavin Nicholson (School of Accountancy, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia)
Amedeo Pugliese (School of Accountancy, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia)

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management

ISSN: 1176-6093

Article publication date: 23 September 2014

2028

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to open up the black box of the boardroom by directly observing directors’ interactions during meetings to better understand board processes.

Design/methodology/approach

We analyze videotaped observations of board meetings at two Australian companies to develop insights into what directors do in meetings and how they participate in decision-making processes. The direct observations are triangulated with semi-structured interviews, mini-surveys and document reviews.

Findings

Our analyses lead to two key findings: while board meetings appear similar at a surface level, boardroom interactions vary significantly at a deeper level (i.e. board members participate differently during different stages of discussions), and factors at multiple levels of analysis explain differences in interaction patterns, revealing the complex and nested nature of boardroom discussions.

Research implications

By documenting significant intra- and inter-board meeting differences, our study challenges the widespread notion of board meetings as rather homogeneous and monolithic, points towards agenda items as a new unit of analysis and highlights the need for more multi-level analyses in a board setting.

Practical implications

While policymakers have been largely occupied with the “right” board composition, our findings suggest that decision outcomes or roles’ execution could be potentially affected by interactions at a board level. Differences in board meeting styles might explain prior ambiguous board structure-performance results, enhancing the need for greater normative consideration of how boards do their work.

Originality/value

This study complements existing research on boardroom dynamics and provides a systematic account of director interactions during board meetings.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Australian Research Council for their ARC-Discovery funding and the QUT Business School for their HPRG-funding of the QUT Behavioural Governance Group. We also highly appreciate the willingness of the two anonymous organizations to participate in this study and allow video cameras in their boardrooms. Last but not least we thank Michelle Sheldrake and Emma Pelling for their excellent research assistance throughout this project. Previous versions of this paper have been presented at conferences of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management and the European Academy of Management.

Citation

Bezemer, P.-J., Nicholson, G. and Pugliese, A. (2014), "Inside the boardroom: exploring board member interactions", Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 238-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-02-2013-0005

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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