Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom
Corporate governance is one of the hottest topics in the business world now, as it always is in times of stress. Some of the recently discovered scandals and corporate failures can be traced back to corporate governance failures. Boards of directors must share some of the blame in many of the fa...
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2012
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oai:scholar.dlu.edu.vn:DLU123456789-311262014-01-20T06:19:33Z Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom Merchant, Kenneth A Pick, Katharina Corporate governance Boards of directors Social psychology Corporate governance is one of the hottest topics in the business world now, as it always is in times of stress. Some of the recently discovered scandals and corporate failures can be traced back to corporate governance failures. Boards of directors must share some of the blame in many of the failures. Something was not working right, even in some boardrooms full of highly qualifi ed individuals. Boards have been criticized for being too large or too small, for having members who are not independent or who lack the requisite knowledge, or for enabling “bad apple” directors who are inattentive, weak, and even self-serving, among other things. But that is not at all what this book is about. In this book we show how seemingly ideal boards, those with “best practice” size, composition, and structure, can still fail to provide good governance simply because they fall victim to problems inherent in all groups. While having groups of board members provide corporate oversight is probably necessary, and even advantageous in some respects, groups have a dark side too. Tendencies that occur in group behavior can destroy or obscure the talents of even highly intelligent, energetic, and wellintended individuals, causing collective blind spots, biases, and ineffi - ciencies that can render boards ineffective. Groups often perceive risks differently from the way individual group members do and collectively fail to see problems where they really exist. Groups tend toward conformity in perceptions and attitudes, even when they are obviously wrong. Groups are prone to framing decisions in ways that none of the good decision makers on the board would do individually. And groups often waste time on unimportant details both when more important activities await and when meeting time is severely limited. No group is immune to these destructive patterns, which makes understanding them critically important from a governance standpoint. They can impair board effectiveness even when all the right pieces (and people) are in place. In this book we argue that as a fi rst step it is important to recognize these group dynamics and the problems they cause. Some of them can be minimized through, for example, properly designed decision processes.Others are more complicated. But all of them need to be recognized and understood so that we can properly shape our expectations of the degree and quality of oversight corporate boards of directors can provide and so that we can turn our energy toward the many group-level factors that could improve board performance going forward. This book is intended for board members, managers, and advanced students who want to further their knowledge of boardroom behavior and, particularly, the negative effects that are produced by common boardroom dynamics. The readers of this book will benefi t by becoming aware of these potentially serious problems, possible remedies, and tradeoffs that must be made. 2012-06-22T02:26:30Z 2012-06-22T02:26:30Z 2010 Book http://scholar.dlu.edu.vn/thuvienso/handle/DLU123456789/31126 en application/pdf Business Expert |
institution |
Thư viện Trường Đại học Đà Lạt |
collection |
Thư viện số |
language |
English |
topic |
Corporate governance Boards of directors Social psychology |
spellingShingle |
Corporate governance Boards of directors Social psychology Merchant, Kenneth A Pick, Katharina Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
description |
Corporate governance is one of the hottest topics in the business world
now, as it always is in times of stress. Some of the recently discovered
scandals and corporate failures can be traced back to corporate governance
failures. Boards of directors must share some of the blame in many
of the failures. Something was not working right, even in some boardrooms
full of highly qualifi ed individuals.
Boards have been criticized for being too large or too small, for having
members who are not independent or who lack the requisite knowledge,
or for enabling “bad apple” directors who are inattentive, weak, and even
self-serving, among other things. But that is not at all what this book
is about. In this book we show how seemingly ideal boards, those with
“best practice” size, composition, and structure, can still fail to provide
good governance simply because they fall victim to problems inherent in
all groups.
While having groups of board members provide corporate oversight
is probably necessary, and even advantageous in some respects, groups
have a dark side too. Tendencies that occur in group behavior can destroy
or obscure the talents of even highly intelligent, energetic, and wellintended
individuals, causing collective blind spots, biases, and ineffi -
ciencies that can render boards ineffective. Groups often perceive risks
differently from the way individual group members do and collectively
fail to see problems where they really exist. Groups tend toward conformity
in perceptions and attitudes, even when they are obviously wrong.
Groups are prone to framing decisions in ways that none of the good
decision makers on the board would do individually. And groups often
waste time on unimportant details both when more important activities
await and when meeting time is severely limited. No group is immune
to these destructive patterns, which makes understanding them critically
important from a governance standpoint. They can impair board effectiveness
even when all the right pieces (and people) are in place.
In this book we argue that as a fi rst step it is important to recognize
these group dynamics and the problems they cause. Some of them can be
minimized through, for example, properly designed decision processes.Others are more complicated. But all of them need to be recognized and
understood so that we can properly shape our expectations of the degree
and quality of oversight corporate boards of directors can provide and
so that we can turn our energy toward the many group-level factors that
could improve board performance going forward.
This book is intended for board members, managers, and advanced
students who want to further their knowledge of boardroom behavior
and, particularly, the negative effects that are produced by common
boardroom dynamics. The readers of this book will benefi t by becoming
aware of these potentially serious problems, possible remedies, and tradeoffs
that must be made. |
format |
Book |
author |
Merchant, Kenneth A Pick, Katharina |
author_facet |
Merchant, Kenneth A Pick, Katharina |
author_sort |
Merchant, Kenneth A |
title |
Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
title_short |
Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
title_full |
Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
title_fullStr |
Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
title_full_unstemmed |
Blind Spots, Biases, and Other Pathologies in the Boardroom |
title_sort |
blind spots, biases, and other pathologies in the boardroom |
publisher |
Business Expert |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://scholar.dlu.edu.vn/thuvienso/handle/DLU123456789/31126 |
_version_ |
1757665659256307712 |