Hospitals monitor resource consumption.

Early in 1988, a survey questionnaire was mailed to all hospital-based members of the American Academy of Medical Directors (now the American College of Physician Executives) to determine the extent to which the institutions were monitoring and controlling physician-directed resource consumption under the DRG-based prospective pricing system. This article is a summary of the survey findings.     

Physician executives' characteristics and attitudes

This monograph reports on a survey of physician executives who are members of the American College of Physician Executives. The survey emphasized four areas--factors in an individual's move into management as a career choice; satisfaction with management as a career or as an element of a career; factors that prepare a physician to manage; and factors in future development of physician managers.     

No pattern seen in survey for overreader qualifications

A survey was conducted in the fall of 1989 to determine how hospitals handle the task of overreading of computer-generated electrocardiograms. All hospital-based members (1,451) of the American College of Physician Executives were sent questionnaires. Responses were received from 413 physician executives, a response rate of about 28 percent. The results of the survey are summarized in this article.     

Survey provides overview of profession's responsibilities

At the end of 1990, the Physician Executive Management Center, Tampa, Fla., undertook a survey of College members to determine levels of compensation and benefits and to provide a glimpse at the roles and responsibilities of physician executives. The results of the survey have recently been published by the Management Center. In this article, the roles and responsibilities of physician executives for the overall sample are summarized.     

Physician bonding techniques surveyed

Success in the health care marketplace depends largely on satisfaction of the needs of patients and their physicians. To assess the success of specific physician bonding techniques and compare them to results obtained in an institution-specific study, the author surveyed hospital-based members of the College in late 1990. The outcome of the latter survey is summarized in this article.     

Indications for the use of low-osmolar contrast agents.

The recent introduction of low-osmolar contrast agents for use in radiology procedures presents a dilemma for health care managers concerned about cost and quality. The new agents are reported to be safer and are better tolerated by patients, but they are very costly. Earlier this year, a survey was sent to hospital-based members of the American College of Physician Executives to determine what policy existed for the use of these agents. As a result of the survey, we have a better picture of the indications for low-osmolar contrast agents being used in clinical practice throughout the United States.     

Management knowledge and skills required by U.K. and U.S. medical directors

A survey was undertaken of the medical directors of National Health Service trusts in the South Thames Regional Health Authority of the United Kingdom. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain medical directors' views regarding the importance of various areas of administrative practice, their preparedness in these areas of administrative knowledge prior to taking up their roles as medical directors, and their views as to the body of knowledge required for future medical directors. The study was compared with a similar study undertaken in the United States. While there were many areas of agreement between the English and the American medical administrators, there were also areas of significant differences of opinion. The need to develop a recognized training program in medical administration is acknowledged.     

Women on corporate boards: key influencers or tokens?

This paper investigates how the increasing ratio of women directors on corporate boards is associated with decision-making dynamics, specifically the perceived participation and influence of the women on the board. We test hypotheses using a sample of 458 women on Norwegian corporate boards where the ratio of women directors among board members ranges from 11 to 100%. Overall, we find that women perceive that they have a high level of information sharing, a low level of self-censorship, and a high level of influence across the different ratios of board membership held by women directors. These results support the notion of women directors as significant influencers. However, the results also show that women directors perceive that they do receive more information and engage in more informal social interaction when the ratio increases, and perceived influence does also increase when the ratio increases.     

How does interpersonal justice affect outside directors’ governance behavior? A cross-cultural comparison

We examine the impact of interpersonal justice among outside directors on the board and between a director and the CEO regarding the director’s monitoring and resource provision behaviors in different cultural contexts. We argue that directors from individualistic countries are more influenced by CEO interpersonal justice while directors from collectivistic countries are more affected by the board interpersonal justice. Our main effect results indicate that interpersonal justice with board members is positively related to both monitoring and resource provision by a director, while CEO interpersonal justice is related only to resource provision. Our results also show different effects on the director’s behaviors between three countries, i.e., Canada, Singapore, and Spain. We found that CEO interpersonal justice is positively associated with resource provision in Canada, while board interpersonal justice is positively related to both monitoring and resource provision in Singapore and Spain. These results suggest that directors discharge their board duties differently by how they are treated by other directors and the CEO and that their governance behaviors vary by culture. This study contributes to the literature on comparative corporate governance by showing the differences in directors’ behaviors in different cultural contexts.     

What do board members in art organizations do? A grounded theory approach

This paper explores the characteristics and activities of board members in art organizations. It describes two case studies within international artists’ residencies in France and Germany. Adopting a grounded theory approach, our study identifies the different characteristics of board members such as friendship, competence and diversity, together with board activities such as controlling, advising, legitimating, helping, exchanging and deciding. The contributions of this research are twofold. First, contrary to most governance literature, the independence of board members and board monitoring roles do not seem to be important issues for the two art organizations involved. Instead, friendship and networking appear to be key factors for the board, helping the organizations to be successful by giving them more chance to survive and grow. Second, as specific board members in the two cases studied, executive directors play a continual role of “governance entrepreneurs,” building and managing various board-related organs to counterbalance the influence of fund providers. In this way, executive directors attempt to satisfy their predominant public fund providers and to help the artists’ residencies survive.     

Creative and innovative behaviours of corporate directors: an elusive role of task-related conflicts

The aim of the present work is to examine corporate directors’ boardroom interactions associated with conflicts as well as creativity and innovation phenomena. In line with the behavioral perspective in research on boards, we investigate relationships between task conflicts, an emerging creative and innovative boardroom climate as well as directors’ work behaviors. Drawing upon the survey data from 423 corporate directors, we tested hypothesized relationships by the means of the structural equation modelling technique. The results provide evidence suggesting that task-related conflicts among corporate directors appear to be equally detrimental for the psychological workgroup climate as they are advantageous for initiating creative and innovative work behaviours. In other words, the positive effect of task conflicts on directors’ creative and innovative work behaviours occurs so long as such conflicts do not simultaneously impair their perception of the creative/innovative boardroom environment. By integrating the literature on workplace group conflicts, creativity and innovation with the corporate governance writings, this study offers a new insight into corporate directors functioning. Presented findings have clear implications for future board research and managerial practice.     

Health reform bridging gaps between physician executives and CEOs

Recently, Hospitals & Health Networks reported the results of a study it conducted, in conjunction with Premier Health Alliance, Inc., and among hospital CEOs and COOs to gauge their preparedness and level of concern about various health care reform issues. Because administrators and physician executives are not always in agreement, we wondered how physician executives would rate the same issues. To find out, the American College of Physician Executives polled some members and posed the original survey questions. The results and subsequent interviews revealed that health care reform appears to be a catalyst in bringing the two factions closer in their thinking.     

Job-related diversity: the comprehensiveness and speed of board decision-making processes—an upper echelons approach

Strategic decision-making processes influence firm-level outcomes. Using the theory of upper echelons, this study investigates how diversity in directors’ skills, knowledge, and industry experience influence board decision-making processes that may impact overall strategic decision-making processes. Such diversity has been commonly accepted to be a ‘double-edged sword’—enhancing comprehensiveness but hindering the speed of decision-making. On the contrary, we used an existing large survey database to show that directors’ diverse educational background, functional background, and industry experience (job-related diversity) have a positive effect on comprehensiveness as well as the speed of board decision-making. In addition, our results indicate that board processes (directors’ use of their knowledge and skills) play an important role by transmitting the positive effects of diversity. The study is in a tradition of exploring how boards may influence firms’ strategic decision-making processes. Our findings provide additional arguments for adding job-related diversity to boards of directors.     

A guide to the upcoming health reform debate

AT the 1992 ACPE National Institute, several hundred physician executives actively participated in a debate on three competing visions for the health care system in the United States. This new column in the journal attempts to further this process by providing information on policy positions of relevance to College members. While the College does not advocate a particular position, the College encourages individual members to contact the interest group of their choice and get involved in the health policy debate. In this first column, one of the proposals currently being discussed is summarized.     

The role of human and social board capital in driving CSR reporting

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the professional, technical and relational background (human and social capital) of outside directors on promoting firm CSR disclosure. Following the Hillman et al. (2000) taxonomy of board members, we classify outside directors as business experts, support specialists and community influential, and examine whether business and technical expertise or political ties in the boardroom affect CSR disclosure.This study confirms that not all outside directors are equally effective in improving CSR disclosure and that only certain kinds of outside directors, those classified as support specialists, help promote it. On the other hand, our findings also show that directors with previous experience as politicians affect CSR disclosure negatively, probably due to their interests in safeguarding their reputation within the company, in avoiding public scrutiny and in protecting their political connections. In addition, our set of analysis with interaction effects reveals that powerful CEOs have the incentive to promote CSR-related strategies and to convince business experts and support specialist directors to enhance profitable sustainability strategies and transparency in CSR disclosure. Nevertheless, the powerful CEO effect is not enough to compensate the negative role of political directors on CSR reporting. Therefore, this paper supports the theories in favor of analyzing the multiple configurations of corporate governance mechanisms by adopting a holistic approach, and the need to combine these configurations in order to analyze their impact on CSR behavior.     

Physicians in transition

The study of physicians as managed care executives has been relatively recent. Much of what was written in the past focused primarily on doctors who had taken hospital-based administrative positions, especially as medical directors or vice presidents of medical affairs.1 But the '80s brought rising health care costs and the emergence of the "O's"--HMOs, PPOs, UROs, EPOs, PHOs, H2Os, and Uh-Ohs--in response. It also brought a growing number of physicians who traded their white coats and their particular "ologies" for the blue suits of executive management. I am convinced that it is important now, and will be increasingly important in the future, to better understand that transition. That belief led me to undertake, with the help and support of ACPE, the survey that is reported in this article. A questionnaire was sent in 1994 to a random sample of 300 managed care physician executive members of ACPE. Responses were returned by 225 members, a response rate of better than 80 percent. Twenty-five of the responses were not applicable, having been returned by physicians who had never made a transition from clinical careers. The remaining 230 responses form the basis for this report.     

The Performance Implications of Ownership-driven Governance Reform

This paper explores the performance impact of recent changes in foreign shareholdings and boardroom reforms in Japan. Empirical research on the impact of reform on the Japanese corporate governance system could provide useful lessons for their European counterparts who are themselves facing similar pressures to reform. We found that although participation of outside directors in strategic decision-making was associated with positive stock returns, the increase in the ratio of outside directors, the separation of the board members and executive officers, and the reduction of board size were not related to firm performance.     

Why and when female directors are less engaged in their board duties: An interface perspective

Female representation on boards is perhaps one of the most studied topics in board-governance research. At the same time, much is unknown about female directors' task engagement within boards. Drawing from psychological theory on societal gender beliefs, our study tests whether the impact of director gender on supervisory task engagement hinges on status dynamics in two relational interfaces: the director–board interface and the director–CEO interface. According to this perspective, female directors show less task engagement because gender is a diffuse status cue that creates status differentiation within the director–board interface. Multi-source board survey data (n = 61 boards, n = 315 directors) confirms that, within the confines of the boardroom, female directors do, indeed, receive lower-status ratings than male directors. This effect is weaker when boards have a female chair. Furthermore, lower status explains perceived lower task engagement of female directors, but this link critically hinges on the CEO–director interface. The impact of status differences is more pronounced when directors intersect with a relatively dominant CEO. All in all, the results demonstrate that relational interfaces play a key role for female directors’ task engagement in their board duties.     

Corporate social responsibility in the board room – when do directors pay attention?

When do board directors pay attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues? Board directors have traditionally focused on maximizing shareholder profit and viewed corporate governance narrowly as a way to meet this goal. They have paid little or no attention to CSR issues because they see CSR as a contrast to profit maximization. We argue in this article that companies can no longer ignore CSR. We propose that three conditions must be met in order for boards to pay attention toCSR. First, the board must have a mindset that considers CSR as contributing value to the firm. Second, the board must have relevant competences that enable members to understand CSR issues. Third, compensation of top-level management should reflect CSR performance. The first two conditions are directly linked to human resource development because, in order to embrace the specific challenges that CSR possesses, board members must develop an understanding of the CSR field and related challenges and opportunities for the company.     

董事激励与公司业绩--实验的证据

我们在实验框架下检验了董事会成员的激励对股东财富和CEO报酬的影响,以及该报酬与公司业绩之间的敏感度.文中提出了两种任命董事的方法,一种由CEO任命,另一种由最大的股东自动担任董事.由董事会决定CEO的报酬,而CEO负责企业的生产、投资和分红决策.投资者根据接收到的每个公司的分红、资本收益这些信息,通过买卖这些企业的股票来调整他们的资产组合. 我们发现,薪酬与业绩之间的敏感度随董事持股比例的增加而上升.此外,当大股东作为董事会成员时,经济体所产生的财富(股东财富是其中的一部分)更大;而当CEO选择董事时,结果是缺乏效率的.本文讨论了关于董事职能和相关代理成本这一研究结果,以及标准会计框架下,限制执行人员报酬和报表标准化要求.