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This paper characterizes the role of the board of directors in a more specific way than has been done previously, and uses this characterization to support the argument that, in some cases, the mandate of an effective board should go beyond the prevention of self‐interested behavior by management. The enlarged role for the board of directors that this paper contemplates carries with it the need to ensure shareholders that the board of directors is not engaging in self‐interested behavior of its own, and posits that requiring the board of directors to report to shareholders on its activities and effectiveness is a potential solution to this problem. The paper seeks to present theoretically grounded ideas on how this might be done in a meaningful fashion.

This conceptual paper proposes a “short list” of reporting items for boards of directors, derived from a theoretical model that examines board of director performance from a group dynamics perspective.

This paper proposes measure for board of director performance reporting that are based upon potential active agency roles. The authors suggest that future dialogue regarding board of director performance reporting might be well served by recognizing the limitations of previous research that has found differing and questionable links between board characteristics and organizational outcomes.

The authors suggest that the items derived from the theoretical model for examining board of director performance reporting need to be empirically assessed in terms of their usefulness in a variety of industries and contexts.

The authors argue that active agency roles and functional group dynamics should form the backbone of a board of director performance reporting process.

This paper extends the board of director performance reporting literature by providing a theoretically grounded rationale for measuring and conceptualizing board effectiveness.

This paper seeks to argue that boards can be playing a more proactive role in contributing to organizational effectiveness and that their composition requires greater research attention. By integrating the organizational behaviour literature on teams with the governance literature, the paper empirically examines the relationship between key board composition variables and firm performance.

At this stage in the development of the approach, the focus is on a sub‐set of the elements proposed in the group dynamics literature. The population for this study comprises all companies included in the Canadian TSE 300 Composite Index (renamed the S&P/TSX Composite Index). This study uses cross‐sectional regression analyses to examine the nature of the relationships between board composition and firm performance.

The data analyses revealed that high levels of experience, appropriate team size, moderate levels of variation in age and team tenure were correlated with firm performance.

Boards of directors (BOD) are teams whose effectiveness can be assessed through group dynamic constructs in the organizational behaviour literature. Further research is needed to examine the intricate dynamics that might moderate or mediate the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance.

The findings provide a much‐needed benchmark to consider whether the composition of boards is optimal, given the functions and mandate. In addition, the study highlights the opportunity costs of boards, restricting their roles to agency issues.

This interdisciplinary paper tests some of the many variables that can be extrapolated from the group dynamics research. The paper calls on boards to examine what BOD functionality really entails, and argues for more proactive behaviours aimed at strategic firm issues.

The purpose of this paper is to test for the salience of social licence to operate in the context of a very poor community. The idea of social license to operate is closely linked to ideas of stakeholder power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997). But what if a community is impoverished, and lacks the tools and privileges to effect change? Do the stakeholders believe they have influence over extension of the social license to operate? Does the employer listen to them? To examine this issue, survey data was gathered from 12,000 stakeholders working in a poor township in South Africa. The township is located near a major South African city in an employment market dominated by a single heavy industry. Responders perceived their welfare to be of importance to the employer and that they had a role in extension of the social license to operate.

A survey of 12,000 employees working in an impoverished township near a large South African city.

Despite being impoverished and lacking the tools and privileges to effect change that are available in wealthier communities, responders perceived some influence over extension of social license to operate.

While responders expressed clear sentiments, their actual power to extend or withhold social license to operate is unclear, and the study did not test for this.

The practical implication is that firms should be wary of assuming that just because a stakeholder group is impoverished, it is unaware of its role and power as a stakeholder.

The more important implication is that under conditions of poverty, responders expressed a clear desire to see impediments to work removed, rather than a desire for handouts.

The authors doubt there has ever been a study of this kind with this large a sample, in conditions of such extreme poverty.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the research topics and methodologies used in the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Business Excellence Model studies, as well as to suggest a future research agenda.

An integrative literature review methodology was used to explore the diversity of studies being conducted concerning the EFQM model.

Results of the review indicate that the majority of papers are focused on too few research topics (e.g. performance measurement) with limited methodologies (e.g. case study).

The paper enables researchers and practitioners to recognize the missing avenues of current studies and how these avenues could be improved. It provides ideas to stimulate researchers to take divergent and multiple methodological facts. It will be helpful to enhance both the quality and volume of the EFQM model studies.

This paper identifies the current status of the EFQM model studies in terms of research topic and methodological issues.

This paper aims to examine the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) on moral agents, and in turn, governance structures in western societies.

This conceptual paper takes a holistic approach to governance and recasts popular notions of e‐governance by answering fundamental questions about the potential roles of governance in individuals, communities, organizations, governments and society.

The authors argue that it is only when the context of the moral agent is fully understood that it is possible to begin to unravel whether ICT is likely to have beneficial or detrimental effects on fundamental governance goals.

Future research into e‐governance topics would be well served by discussing the governance goal that ICT is designed to improve or enhance. Whether ICT can make aspects of e‐government quicker and faster is not in dispute; however, whether ICT will actually achieve deeper governance goals requires reframing research questions.

When viewed as moral agents, individuals, communities, organizations, governments and societies can use governance goals to enhance both self‐actualization and social order in line with community values.

By recasting the question “What can ICT contribute to governance and government?” to “How will ICT affect governance?”, we move away from the presumption of a positive influence, and suggest that contributions to governance goals should guide our discussions surrounding ICT utility.

This paper proposes mainly that boards of directors (BOD) are teams that share characteristics with many other kinds of teams. As a consequence, some of the factors that lead to board effectiveness are the same factors that lead to team effectiveness in general. By integrating the organizational behaviour literature on teams with the governance literature, a comprehensive model of BOD performance is proposed.

This conceptual paper proposes a model to assess the performance of a board and situates board performance as one input into firm performance.

This paper outlines the dynamic interplay between board characteristics, functionality and performance and proposes a comprehensive model, based largely on the group dynamics literature.

Suggests that future research attempt to empirically address some (or all) of the items in the conceptual model. Acknowledges that operationalizing certain variables will prove challenging, but suggests that ethnographic accounts of how these variables (and potentially others) interact may be a valuable first step in more fully understanding board composition, functioning and performance.

It is argued that by extending traditional passive agency roles, BOD may be able to provide a wider range of contributions to enhance shareholder value.

This interdisciplinary paper integrates the group dynamics literature with the governance literature to propose a comprehensive model of BOD performance.

This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

The market’s reactions to six decisions that dealt with the employment‐at‐will doctrine were examined with event study methodology. Three hypotheses were tested, all three of which were supported clearly by the data. Shareholder returns to a sample of California firms fell in response to the three California decisions that provided at‐will employees with causes of action to challenge their discharges; returns to those same firms rose in response to the Foley decision, which cut back on the employment‐at‐will erosions in California; and, returns to a sample of firms in New York rose in response to the two decisions from New York that affirmed the supremacy of the employment‐at‐will doctrine in New York. These results support the view that employment‐at‐will is beneficial for employers and that erosions to that doctrine are costly to employers.

The purpose of this paper is to report an analysis of arrangements in English mental health trusts to meet the needs of adult service users who are homeless. Homelessness is associated with various forms of mental ill-health, yet homeless people are not always well-served by statutory mental health services. In recent years, practice guidance seeking to improve health outcomes for the homeless has emphasised the need for NHS services to improve care pathways and professional provision for this service user group, in part by collaborating more closely with homelessness organisations.

Responses to freedom of information requests sent to trusts were analysed. The requests asked trusts for information concerning partnerships with external agencies, particular projects/staff, training available to trust professionals, referral pathways, and intervention models/approaches informing work with homeless service users.

In total, 49 trusts provided information that could be used in the analysis. Just under half of these had dedicated arrangements or resources, including outreach teams and clinical staff co-located in accommodation and support services for the homeless. The remaining trusts indicated that they either had some limited specific arrangements, such as links between local agencies working with the homeless and existing services, or no dedicated arrangements in place. Training to improve staff awareness around, and knowledge in, working with homeless service users tended to be minimal if provided at all.

This analysis further evidences gaps in the way the needs of the homeless population are addressed by statutory mental health services and adds support to concerns about the homeless having equitable access to care and treatment.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between satisfaction with buildings, facilities and services and perceived productivity support and to test whether the findings from a similar study of Batenburg and Van der Voordt (2008) are confirmed in a repeat study after 10 years with more recent data.

Data were traced from a database with data on user satisfaction and perceived productivity support. These data were collected through the work environment diagnostic tool WODI light. The data include responses from 25,947 respondents and 191 organisations that have been analysed by stepwise multiple-regression analyses.

In total 38% of the variation of office employees’ satisfaction with support of productivity can be explained by employee satisfaction with facilities, the organisation, current work processes and personal- and job-related characteristics. The most important predictor of self-assessed support of productivity is employee satisfaction with facilities. In particular, psychological aspects, i.e. opportunities to concentrate and to communicate, privacy, level of openness, and functionality, comfort and diversity of the workplaces are very important. The findings confirm that employee satisfaction with facilities correlates significantly with perceived productivity support. Other factors that are not included in the data set, such as intrinsic motivation, labour circumstances and human resource management may have an impact as well.

This research provides a clear insight in the relation between employee satisfaction with facilities and the perceived support of productivity, based on survey data collected over almost 10 years in 191 organisations.