Understanding the leadership role of the board chairperson through a team production approach

Current corporate governance recommendations – rooted in an investor-based shareholder supremacy model – often narrowly discuss the issue of board leadership as whether or not there is a separation of the CEO and chairperson positions. In this article we employ a team production approach to better understand the leadership role of the board chairperson. We argue that effective board performance is driven by the extent to which corporate directors bring relevant knowledge into the boardroom. An important prerequisite is however that the knowledge must be actively used. In line with this argument, we contend that the competencies and behaviors of the board chairperson are critical in order to unleash a board’s value creating potential.