The governance of corporate entities and the activities of their governing bodies was a subject that deserved study. It occurred to me that governance was different from management. This was not the behaviour of the classical organization theories, analytical decision making, and basic management concepts that we were teaching in the Management Centre. Council members always outnumbered the academic staff. Council’s divisive cliques, political power plays, and unpredictable interpersonal relations astounded me. The Management Centre was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee and its board of directors, called a Council, comprised heads of Oxford colleges and leaders of major British companies. My interest in boards and their behaviour was kindled in the 1970s, when I was Director of the Oxford Centre for Management Studies, subsequently to become Templeton College, and then part of the Saïd Business School, Oxford. But where was the board of directors on the management organization chart? The twenty-first century, however, has seen corporate governance come centre stage, with the spotlights on the way power is exercised over corporate entities around the world.
Throughout the 20th century, the focus had been on management.
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