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  • Published on

    European tour: available to speak or consult in Nov'13

    Conferences Governance Management Performance Phd Research
    Are you based in the UK or Europe, and do you need any assistance with governance or strategy? I will be presenting a paper at ECMLG'13 (European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance) in November. As the itinerary has me arriving in London the weekend before the conference, I have some time available for other meetings or speaking engagements, as follows:
    • Sunday 10 November: arrive in London
    • Monday 11 November: available
    • Tuesday 12 November: available
    • Wednesday 13 November: travel to Klagenfurt, Austria
    • Thursday 14 November: ECMLG'13
    • Friday 15 November: ECMLG'13
    • Monday 18 November: available
    • Tuesday 19 November: depart

    If you would like to me to meet with you and your colleagues, or speak (in London or any other capital city), please contact me to let me know how I can help.
  • Published on

    Humbled, honoured, privileged & thankful—at the same time!

    Governance Phd Research
    News arrived today that Massey University has seen fit to support my doctoral research by awarding a Doctoral Scholarship, worth $25,000 per annum. This is truly a blessing, and indicates that Massey sees value in my research. The funds will help offset costs associated with data collection (some of the boards I am observing require domestic and international travel). It also means that I can attend some highly regarded international conferences, to socialise my emergent ideas and solicit feedback. Overall, the scholarship means that the research can continue apace, which bodes well for a strong outcome. If you would like to learn more about my governance research, please contact me. 

    Thank you Massey University, I am deeply grateful for your support.
  • Published on

    It's time to put diversity in context

    Governance Management Performance Phd Research
    The calls for more diversity on company boards have become a cacophony. Researchers, commentators, shareholders, aspiring directors and wishful thinkers need to pause and take stock, lest political correctness, personal agendas and hearsay trump the real goal, that of driving company performance. 

    The most recent variant that I've seen is a call for increased diversity on selection panels, because this leads to more diverse appointments. Sorry, but I struggle with this. How will a more diverse panel result in a more diverse board (assuming of course that a more diverse board leads to increased company performance)? Surely, the primary goal of a selection panel is to appoint the best people to achieve the best result for the company and the shareholders—regardless of gender, creed, experience or any other 'diversity' attribute?

    Many have jumped on the diversity bandwagon in recent years, presumably because a number of correlations between visible variables (notably gender, ethnicity, independent directors, split CEO/Chair, but there are others) and company performance have been identified. I agree that some correlations have been identified, but they are not universal across all cases by any means. In fact, the research results are mixed, and we must not forget that correlations are not causations.

    The real challenge is to discover the underlying causal mechanism(s) that explain how boards actually influence company performance. I doubt the answer lies in the superficial correlations that have been observed to date. We need to dig deeper, beyond the current diversity arguments. We also need to admit that explaining how boards influence company performance is a very complex, socially dynamic problem—which means assertions that transient correlations are causal are unlikely to be correct.
  • Published on

    Governance and management: is a clear separation best?

    Governance Management Performance Phd Research
    I have been working on a paper which explores issues surrounding the separation of governance and management. The topic is potentially quite controversial, because it questions the basis of most modern governance practice. Hopefully, the findings will be presented at a conference in the USA early next year.

    The paper is needed because we have witnessed many corporate failures in the last decade, and autopsies suggest that a failure of governance was a contributing factor in many cases. Clearly, the separation of governance and management espoused by agency theory(*), and by many since, has provided no guarantee of success. Various defensive positions have been erected by Boards including lack of information; poor implementation of strategy; and, management fraud. Important questions lie just below the surface, including what role the Board should play, and whether a clear separation between governance and management is the best model to achieve the organisation's aims.

    The answers to these questions have potentially far-reaching ramifications. I would appreciate hearing your views and experiences, to inform my research. If you can share links or references to any prior papers, that would be great as well. Please feel free to provide a (public) comment here, or, if you would prefer, contact me via email.

    (*) The "traditional" view—that the roles of governance and management must be held separate—is based on agency theory. Agency was proposed by Jensen and Meckling in the 1970s. It has become the dominant theory of governance, in both research and practice. However, in the four decades since, no robust evidence to explain how such a model delivers better performance has emerged.
  • Published on

    On making predictions about the future

    Phd Readings Research Societal Wellbeing
    I've been reading some back issues of The American Scholar recently, as part of my personal commitment to read widely and explore topics that I'd not normally think about. Reading widely is the side story of my quest to explain how Boards influence company performance. It provides a bit of balance to the humdrum of reading academic papers. 

    Some of the articles and books that I have read have really captured my attention and thought. One such article, originally published in the Spring 2010 issue of Scholar, summarised British philosopher A.C. Grayling's book Ideas that matter: The concepts that shape the 21st century. Grayling introduced 12 ideas that would, in his opinion, dominate public consciousness and debate during the century ahead. 

    This sounded remarkable, for the making of reliable predictions—especially longer-term predictions—is notoriously difficult. A reliance on empirical evidence can easily lead to erroneous conclusions—the White Swans Thesis is a famous case in point. Notwithstanding this, most, if not all, of Grayling's predictions are coming to pass, just three years after his thesis was published. What does this say about Grayling's ability to predict the future? Did he see something that most of us missed, or is Grayling's "long term view" actually much shorter than what readers might have assumed in reading the title? I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Call me a sceptic if you will, but I'm yet to see a robust case to suggest that the making of future predictions based on empirical historical evidence is anything more than intelligent guesswork.
  • Published on

    Stepping up a gear...another milestone reached

    Governance Phd Research
    This week marks a red letter point in my doctoral journey because, on Thu 13th, I will visit the Boardroom of Company Beta (*), observing and recording the meeting. Finally, after twelve months of reviewing the literature, proposal writing and careful planning, I've reached the milestone point where data collection can commence. It feels good! Over the next year, I will be gathering data from several sources within three companies (Board reports, minutes and meeting observations; Chair and CEO interviews; annual accounts; historical performance data), and trying to make sense of it. 

    To those readers not familiar with my doctoral research: I am investigating the relationship between governance and performance, with the overall goal of providing an explanation of how Boards actually contribute to business performance (because we don't know). The research design is a longitudinal multiple-case study, underpinned by a philosophy called critical realism, and the direct observation of Boards in situ. This combination has never been tackled before—hopefully I haven't bitten off too much! If you'd like to learn more, have a look at the papers on my Research page, or contact me directly.

    (*) Company Beta is so-named because it was the second company to provide approval to participate in my doctoral research. Anonymity is an important condition of this research, to protect the companies and give them confidence that what is reported in the final thesis is not identifiable back to source. I'm due in the Boardroom of Company Alpha in late June, and am still negotiating with a couple of companies to become Company Gamma.