"Director tenure and contribution to board task performance: A time and contingency perspective"

Director tenure is a topic of great interest in the corporate governance debate. Despite the burgeoning interest, there is lack of consensus on the mechanisms shaping directors' contributions over time.

Natalie Elms from Queensland University of Technology and Amedeo Pugliese from the Department of Economics and Management “Marco Fanno” of the University of Padova argue that sociocognitive and behavioral approaches also elucidate the way in which directors' contributions rise and decline with time. 

Using a multiple case study approach, the authors document wide variability in directors' contributions at similar levels of tenure. They find this is due to a series of contingencies including whether directors are novice or experienced, the frequency and nature of board interactions, and the relative power of a director. This variability is particularly clear in longer serving directors. Overall, their study offers a tentative explanation as to why setting an ‘ideal’ tenure for outside directors has proven so difficult and encourages boards and policy makers to consider the influence of director-level features as well as board dynamics in shaping directors' contributions.

Read more in their “Long Range Planning” article here: https://unipd.link/Paper_Pugliese_Director_Tenure