Director’s Multiple Identities and Board Tasks: A Moderating Role of the Power

Abstract

The research in hand explored relationships among the director’s Identity, power and board tasks and responds to an important research question, i.e., how the director’s “multiple identities” can predict board tasks. We recruited board members from 228 organisations operating in the business cities of Pakistan, including Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore from the service sector. For the first part of our research, findings suggested that two social identities of board members were directly affecting board control or monitory task, i.e. shareholder identification and customer identification. However, the other three social identities of board member were not playing any role while performing the monitory task. Our results warn board members to adopt innovative environment aimed at developing better strategic decision-making, where directors should raise above the personal prejudices and justify stewardship in the corporate board by balancing among multiple hats they need to wears during different settings. Moreover, the relevant power agenda in this study challenged the traditional focus of structural power, limited under CEO duality as antecedents of firm’s performance directly and indirectly. The study has implications for the governance scholars and practitioners.