The Involvement of Boards in Strategy Implementation

The classical management perspective works on the assumption that CEO can design an explicit “grand strategy” for the entire enterprise. Later strategy perspectives question these normative assumptions and depict strategy as a messy, disorderly and disjointed process. In academic corporate governance research, it is widely agreed that boards should contribute to corporate strategy. But despite reasonable consensus on the board’s responsibility for strategy, how boards should fulfill this responsibility has remained unclear. In parts this due to the fact that the role the boards in strategy formulation and implementation is still an empirically understudied phenomenon in corporate governance research. Hence, the purpose of this research is to explore the potential role of the boards of directors in strategy formulation and implementation based on case study example – two aspects that have so far been left largely unaddressed by corporate governance research and practice.