Towards a contingency model of board tasks performance: integration firm and industry-level characteristics

This paper moves from the idea that boards may give emphasis to different tasks according to various internal and external conditions. Using survey data on 301 large corporations, we show that internal and external contingencies affect board task performance. Organizational crisis requires boards to be active in all the threee tasks, while organizational success allows boards to be active in the strategic task; uncertainty enhances monitoring task while in regulated industries boards are more involved into the networking activity. This paper suggests a contingency approach to explore boards and governance research and proposes to pursue a fit between board design and roles.