Boards of Directors as Strategists in an Enacted World – The Danish Case

We argue that Boards of Directors of Danish companieshave been socially constructed as an importantdecision making body in the companies. Since 1974,employees have elected members to the Board ofDirectors. Today they can elect one third of the Boardmembers. In spite of this new composition of theBoard, it has emerged as a team that has been able toconvince the stakeholders, the press, and the publicabout its important standing in the management of thecompany.To understand this development we look at fourdifferent perspectives. (1) The changing businessenvironment that has framed the development:globalization, mergers and acquisitions, increasedcompetition, technological innovations, strategicalliances, political consumers, and ethical issues are factors that have been the motor for this change. (2)We use a radical social psychological version ofleadership theory (Meindl, 1993) to understand thesocial construction of the change of the role of theBoard of Directors that has occurred. We argue thatthe stakeholders and the society at large haveascribed importance and leadership to the Board, andthat it plays an important role as strategist in thecompanies. (3) We see the board as a theater ensemblestaging a performance for the audience (stakeholdersand the wider environment) using Erving Goffman's``Presentation of Self in Everyday Life' (1959) as atheoretical point of departure. From this point ofview, the role of the Board is to socialize newmembers, to maintain its unity, and to successfullyplay the role of strategists. (4) To understandstrategists you may understand the company and itsenvironment in either realist terms (objectiveenvironments) or in social constructivist terms(enacted environments) (Smircich and Stubbart, 1985). We adopt the enactment position.     

Employee Participation in the Management of Working Life: An Historical Analysis Focusing on Danish and Scandinavian Conditions

It is argued that the historical development of employee participation in the management of working life is a complex process in which three different institutional logics have been at play throughout the twentieth century in industrialized societies: professional communities, collective bargaining, and co-management. Even though the logics were constructed at different times in history, none of them is necessarily obsolete. But their importance in the total picture of the regulation of working life has changed. The logics are robust as institutions in the sense that they have tried, each in their own way, to adapt to the challenges of working life—that is, to new technology and globalization. As the concrete historical development differs from country to country, requiring a contextual delimitation, I have chosen to focus primarily on conditions in Denmark and secondarily on conditions in the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In a concluding perspective a number of traits characterizing international development are pointed at, traits that may become important for the three institutional logics. They concern changes in employment relations and in the nature of tasks.