IGW'15: Opening Keynote

The second International Governance Workshop got underway at Toulouse Business School, Barcelona Campus on Thursday 11 June 2015. Professor Morten Huse, an esteemed corporate governance scholar from Norway, provided the opening day keynote. Huse has been studying boards for a long time—the mid 1970s—so when he speaks, people tend to listen. Here's four of the points from his talk:

Huse's talk set the scene for a lively debate through the balance of the conference. It will be very interesting to see how this develops.

• The dominant logic of modern boards—independence and opportunism—has not delivered any significant value to shareholders over time. Rather, it has driven short-termism, strong norms of privacy and mis-trust.
• The conception of corporate governance as a set of rules and regulations to keep management honest needs to be replaced. Instead, boards need to think and behave in terms of becoming value-creating teams.
• A fundamental shift is starting to occur, if you look closely: Evidence is starting to emerge to suggest that boards that lead, seek to create value and are involved in the strategic management process are more likely to make positive and meaningful contributions. However, this is not guaranteed, as boards are comprised of people and complex interactions, and external forces exert influence as well.
• Huse suggested that a common language is required. Too often, a speaker says 'X' only to find that other directors hear 'X', 'Y' or even 'Z'. He went on to overlay a common language and important board tasks over the value creation process (the value chain, if you will).