An empirical investigation of perceptions of board roles among the corporate elite

Despite decades of research and conjecture, there is little agreement around the role(s) of the board of directors. In this paper we use confirmatory factor analysis to highlight that the corporate elite (directors and senior managers) perceive the roles of the board to involve overseeing risk and compliance, strategy, governance, developing the CEO and senior management and managing stakeholders. We further show that managers and directors perceive board effectiveness as linked to different combinations of these roles. We conclude with a discussion of our findings for theory and practice.