Corporate governance and the role of boards of directors continues to be a hot topic, and the paper draws on background research for the (2003) UK Higgs review on the role and effectiveness of the non-executive director, which was the UK government’s alternative to the (2002) Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the USA.

  Does it describe a new discovery or a new methodology that's useful to others?

Yes, it questions some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of agency theory as have been applied to the operation of boards—and it does this by using qualitative empirical data drawn from interviews with directors from top UK companies.

When the assumption that directors are self-interested opportunists is applied to the structure and process of boards it tends to be self fulfilling—producing the very behaviors it is designed to check. Instead we argue that board effectiveness depends upon the skill, strength, and rigor of accountability between executives and non-executives, in relation to both company strategy and control.

As a result of our earlier qualitative studies of UK board relationships we were asked by the DTI/Treasury team supporting the Derek Higgs review to conduct the research on their behalf.