What Board Members Do? How the Roles of Executives and Non-Executives Differ

Abstract

The paper first discusses the board roles as found in the existing literature and identifies the different terms that have been constantly used, to describe similar activities. By examining the roles under agency and resource dependence theories - two of the most dominant theoretical perspectives in corporate governance - the paper attempts to propose a clear set of roles that can be used for future studies. Secondly, the paper argues that most studies research the board’s roles as a whole, while it is important to differentiate between the roles of executives vs. non-executives.