Compromise Leadership: Competing Board Subgroups and the Appointment of a Newcomer Chair
研究为何一些董事会任命新人而非内部董事为主席，发现当董事会存在强烈分裂且无主导子群体时，倾向于选择新人作为折中方案，且这一效应受权力动态和争议程度调节。
Prior research suggests that firm-specific human capital is important in enabling board chairs to effectively lead their boards in their oversight duties. Despite this, some boards appoint newcomer directors to the chair position. This paper seeks to explain why. Building on power circulation and faultline theories, we posit that boards characterized by strongly divided subgroups with none dominant over the board may have difficulty in agreeing on promoting a director from among their ranks to the chair position, and instead select a board newcomer as a compromise solution. We further argue that this will be moderated by factors that affect either the power dynamics or the degree of contestation on the board. Analyses on a sample of 2,199 board chair appointments at S&P 1500 firms between the years 2001 and 2017 support our hypotheses.