Introduction

This book presents boards of directors from a strategic and entrepreneurial management perspective. Boards of directors are receiving increased interest in the business world as well as among academic audiences; however, few contributions integrate corporate governance and organizational behavior. In this book, a research stream about value-creating boards is introduced.

Boards of directors have during the recent decades mostly been studied within a framework of corporate governance where the interests of external investors are emphasized. This book aims to go further and explore actual board behavior. The framework and the contributions in the book include concepts such as:

Key Concepts

• board leadership and structure,
• boardroom decision-making,
• board task performance,
• corporate entrepreneurship and innovation,
• boards in small and medium-sized firms,
• board diversity and women directors

The book also presents the results of a research agenda about value-creating boards which was conducted throughout various European countries.