In this thesis I investigate how boards of directors strategize, how they manage strategy and how context affects this role. The significance of this research is underscored by three points. First, while there is an extensive body of literature on the board’s role in strategy, our understanding of how boards address this role, particularly how boards interact with management on strategy, is limited. Second, there is an implicit, albeit largely unproven, assumption in the literature that board involvement in strategy leads to more effective organizational performance. Third, there is a significant concern, especially from a practitioner perspective, that boards are overly focused on aspects of compliance at the expense of strategy and hence, underemphasize their role in driving firm performance. I begin with a review of the relevant literature on the strategy role of boards, using this literature to inform and reframe the broad research question that initiated this thesis – how do boards of directors contribute to strategy? In synthesizing this literature, I argue that it has not adequately addressed actual board behaviour in strategy and the impact of context on this behaviour. With this argument in mind, I frame board involvement in strategy from a Strategy as Practice perspective. I define board level strategizing as the situated (context dependent), socially accomplished flow of activities that characterizes how boards manage strategy, alternatively expressed as how boards ‘do’ strategy. I use this Strategy as Practice perspective to reframe and refine the original research question. I follow the literature review with a discussion of the philosophical and methodological basis for this thesis, outlining an exploratory research program focused primarily on qualitative inquiry and supported by quantitative inquiry. In the qualitative stage I follow an inductive process that involves the pragmatic use of Grounded Theory Method. My specific objective is to develop a rich understanding of the practices that characterize board level strategizing and how these practices are affected by contextual aspects of the firm’s internal and external environments. I draw on pre-existing ideas from the Strategy as Practice literature on corporate level strategizing practices – Procedural and Interactive Strategizing – and use these as the starting point for an investigation into the strategizing practices of boards of directors. This stage involves in-depth, semi-structured interviews with all directors and senior managers (47 in total) in six purposively chosen organizations. It also involves in-depth interviews with another 17 senior managers in 15 different organizations. viii In the quantitative stage I rely on survey research. My specific objectives are to both simplify and enhance the understanding of board level strategizing developed in the qualitative stage. In simplifying understanding I aim to develop concise constructs that adequately capture board level strategizing; in enhancing understanding I aim to develop multiple item indicators for each construct that address its complexity. This stage involves three phases: a pre-test, a pilot survey in one Australian state and a national survey. In operationalizing constructs, I integrate key points from the literature with the detailed description of board level strategizing that emerges from the qualitative stage. Data analysis involves the use of Exploratory Factor Analysis in the Pilot study and Confirmatory Factor Analysis in the National study. The qualitative findings indicate that boards engage in a context specific balance between Procedural and Interactive Strategizing. The former involves an administrative, formalized and hierarchical focus while the latter involves an interpretative and reciprocal focus, one that emphasizes face-to-face interaction between directors and management. While Procedural Strategizing involves the board responding to management’s interpretation of strategy, Interactive Strategizing involves each group arguing for their own interpretations of strategy before reaching collective agreement based on these interpretations. The qualitative findings also indicate that Procedural and Interactive Strategizing are opposite but complementary practices and that the balance between these practices is affected by the interaction between three contextual aspects: (1) the strategic stance of the board; (2) board power relative to management; and (3) the perceived legitimacy of each practice on the part of the organizational actors involved. In elaborating this balance between Procedural and Interactive Strategizing I develop a new theoretical perspective to describe board involvement in strategy. The quantitative findings identify the specific micro-activities that comprise Procedural and Interactive Strategizing. I argue that this thesis makes three significant and interrelated contributions to knowledge. First, it develops a board specific strategizing framework and language, one that advances current concepts in the literature. Second, it represents the initial steps in developing an explanatory theory of board strategizing, one that focuses on the underlying, context specific, practices that constitute boards ‘doing’ strategy. Third, it develops a preliminary scale to measure this strategizing behaviour. Finally, I discuss the implications of this thesis for further research and for practice.