Culture: A Key Ingredient to Value-Added Boards

This thesis draws upon the broad range of research conducted on corporate governance and culture and narrows the focus to cultural dimensions for board governance. The aims of the research were to analyse: the influence of culture on the creation of value-added boards, the role of the chairperson and directors in the development of board culture, and how culture impacts the effectiveness and efficiency of the board. A further, specific, aim was to identify cultural dimensions that can effectively predict a board's culture. Past research has been unable to establish an unequivocal relationship between good corporate governance and firm performance. The evidence is either non-existent, mixed, or weak for such a relationship, and there is no evidence of causality. There is nothing that indicates that if companies follow some set of corporate governance practices, that shareholders and stakeholders will benefit in some manner. A key question is why, after thousands of research hours and numerous papers, has no strong and definitive relationship been found? Using classical grounded theory as a research methodology, this study completed an in-depth review of four Canadian Crown corporation boards and a detailed literature review on corporate governance, leadership, and culture. The research concludes that, due to the unique leadership structure and characteristics of boards, a new theory for the study of board culture is required. The thesis puts forward four dimensions of adaptability, engagability, evidencing, and trusting as the essential ingredients for board culture. The cultural board theory allows for the measurement of both board effectiveness and efficiency. This thesis contributes to knowledge with a comprehensive combined literature review of both corporate governance theories and cultural theories. It identifies weaknesses in existing governance theories and provides a new approach to looking at boardroom behaviour. The thesis also contributes to cultural research (with four new dimensions of evidencing, adaptability, engagability, and trusting as boardroom cultural dimensions), the growing body of classical grounded theory research projects, and to cultural research by identifying gaps in existing theories. Lastly, the thesis adds to the library of qualitative research and is significant in understanding the black box of the board.