Nature of Incentives

Mace, C. A.

doi:10.1038/162557a0

Cited by 1 publication

(5 citation statements)

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“…The most common interlocks are between companies with head offices in the same commercial centers and between financial and non-financial corporations (Dooley, 1969;Levine, 1972). Do such interlocks suggest the control of corporations by financial institutions, wealthy families, or some other external constituency or do they, as Mace (1948) argued, result from the managerial use of boards for information ? The debate over interlocking directorates is fueled by the ambiguity in the role of boards.…”

Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mintzberg's (1983) third ambiguity concerns the uncertainty about how governing boards actually govern or control organizations. Building on the research of Zald (1965) and Mace (1948), he concluded that part-time board members simply lack the information they need to make decisions. Mace (1948) and Zald (1969) found that boards only controlled their organizations in special cases of concentrated ownership or when the organization was dependent on the board for critical financial support such as fund raising or loans.…”

Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building on the research of Zald (1965) and Mace (1948), he concluded that part-time board members simply lack the information they need to make decisions. Mace (1948) and Zald (1969) found that boards only controlled their organizations in special cases of concentrated ownership or when the organization was dependent on the board for critical financial support such as fund raising or loans. In the absence of clear dependence on an external group using the board to control the organization, the board's responsibilities become ambiguous.…”

Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those who have studied governing boards note that part-time board members have only limited information upon which to base their decisions. Mace (1948) suggested that board members usually do not ask discerning questions, because they know so little they fear looking foolish. In addition to the part-time involvement of board members their commitment to the organization is usually less than full-time executives because they are not as dependent on the organization as are full-time employees.…”

Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the ambiguous nature of board responsibilities and the limited commitment of most board members, in practice governing board members often look to full-time managers for guidance and direction. Mace (1948) suggested that more often than not managers select, direct, and judge board members, rather than the reverse.…”

Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Advisory Board Performance: Managing Ambiguity and Limited Commitment in Public Television

Pearce¹,

Rosener²

1985

Journal of Voluntary Action Research

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Citizen advisory boards are important to non-profit and governmental organizations, yet these boards face fundamental problems of ambiguous responsibilities and limited board member commitment. In the present paper a model of these propositions is developed and tested. Board performance is operationalized as productivity and board impact, and is expected to be dependent on the development of operational objectives and a subcommittee structure, which in turn is facilitated by the financial support of management, and impeded by a large board membership. The model is tested using path analysis on a national sample of federally-mandated Community Advisory Boards to public television stations. We find that the establishment of operational objectives and subcommittees is significantly associated with productivity but only weakly with the impact of the advisory board. Board size is unassociated with board performance. The findings support the assertion that successful boards must clarify their roles and develop efficient operating structures, but suggest that the advisory board-management relationship is complex. Virtually all organizations have boards of outsiders who pass judgment on organizational policies. These judgments may be binding on the organization or they may be purely advisory. As pervasive as these structural features are we know surprisingly little about these boards. The present study is concerned with the performance of one kind of board-the advisory board. Advisory boards are composed of non-organizational members who meet intermittently to advise the organization's managers, with members almost always appointed or approved by these full-time managers. Advisory boards are particularly important to non-profit organizations, since they are frequently imposed on non-profits by those (especially government) providing funding. Advisory boards are assumed to provide a &dquo;public&dquo; check in return for public monies. However, uncertainty about what non-profit advisory boards can and should do is a frequent problem. There is confusion about who these boards' constituencies should be and about their roles in the organization. These confusions are exacerbated by the often limited commitment advisory board volunteers give to overcoming the barriers such uncertainty creates. Hence, board members and managers are frequently dissatisfied with advisory board performance (Sewell, Phillips and Phillips, 1979). The number of non-profit and government advisory boards grew explosively as a result of the federal citizen participation mandates of the 1960s. Fur

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Section: Boards In For-profit Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%