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Fine-tuning Board Effectiveness Is Not Enough

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How to Make Boards Work

Abstract

Defining governance and board effectiveness is not a straightforward exercise. In principle, boards are seen to be responsible for reaching the corporate goal and ambition. As an example, the Belgian corporate law states that it is the board’s duty (its reason for being) to do anything that is necessary in order to realise the corporate goal. Based on the fact that directors have been blamed (or even attacked) for not being able to prevent corporate collapses during the ‘Internet bubble’ or for the failures during the financial crisis, this seems to be the opinion of society as well.

The problem is that directors are essentially trying to make a refurbished 1955 Chevrolet keep up with the traffic on a twenty-first century superhighway. (Carter and Lorsch, 2004, p. 29)

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© 2013 Lutgart Van den Berghe and Abigail Levrau

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Van den Berghe, L., Levrau, A. (2013). Fine-tuning Board Effectiveness Is Not Enough. In: Kakabadse, A., Van den Berghe, L. (eds) How to Make Boards Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137275707_7

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