IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/20437_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

How board structure affects social performance and stakeholder management: an example from classified boards

In: Research Handbook on Corporate Governance and Ethics

Author

Listed:
  • Jill A. Brown
  • Anne Anderson
  • Sami Ghaddar

Abstract

In this chapter, we review the relationship between board structure, decision-making and accountability in the context of unitary/one-tier versus classified/staggered boards. Unitary boards elect directors to one-year terms. Classified boards create separate ‘classes’ of directors who are elected for multiple-year terms, with one ‘class’ coming up for re-election each year. Proponents of classified boards say they strengthen a company’s long-term strategy by increasing focus and dedication, while advocates of unitary boards highlight how annual elections can increase accountability and responsiveness to shareholders. With a stakeholder theory lens, we introduce empirical evidence that classified boards perform better in social performance than unitary boards, suggesting that board structure can provide insight into board decision-making processes for social accountability.

Suggested Citation

  • Jill A. Brown & Anne Anderson & Sami Ghaddar, 2023. "How board structure affects social performance and stakeholder management: an example from classified boards," Chapters, in: Till Talaulicar (ed.), Research Handbook on Corporate Governance and Ethics, chapter 5, pages 86-111, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:20437_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781800880603.00013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:20437_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.