Too Unsafe to Monitor? How Board–CEO Cognitive Conflict and Chair Leadership Shape Outside Director Monitoring

Research into boards of directors has provided mixed support for the view that outside directors’ independence or leadership by an independent chair improves monitoring. In this study, we use a micro-level approach to provide a better understanding of why outside directors have difficulty in monitoring the CEO. We highlight that an important reason for this lies in the boardroom dynamics associated with (a) outside directors’ cognitive conflict...