Board Globalisation in the World’s Largest TNCs 1993–2005

Transnational corporations (TNCs) are driving globalisation, but is there any evidence that the boards who govern these corporations are becoming more global? The question is intriguing to those who study corporate governance and those interested in the sociology of global capitalism, but up to now evidence on the extent of TNC board globalisation is largely anecdotal or weak. To address this issue I conducted a follow‐up to Gillies’ and Dickinson’s (1999Corporate Governance: An International Journal, 7, 237–247) study of 80 of the world’s largest TNCs. These authors reported that in 1993 36.3 per cent of these companies had at least one non‐national board member. In late 2005 I found, in contrast, that 75 per cent of these companies had at least one non‐national board member. However, the evidence also shows that while this trend has certainly become more widespread, it is not yet very deep; on average, only 25 per cent of these boards consisted of non‐nationals, while non‐nationals made up a majority of the board in only 10 per cent of these cases. Nevertheless, this trend toward more multinational boards is worth monitoring because such boards provide a transnational social infrastructure which may facilitate the emergence of a global business class.