Abstract
Governance professionals, with the title of board secretary, are inside monitors with dual identities and subject to conflicting expectations of either acting as agents or safeguarding the principals’ interests. Adopting role conflict and agency theories, this study examines how conflicting expectations from critical role senders, including CEO, board chairman and board secretary himself, will affect board secretary turnover. In particular, we posit that inter-sender role conflict, represented by the separation of CEO and board chairman, is more likely to lead to board secretary turnover. Besides, person-role conflict, which occurs when board secretary identifies with principals and the CEO-chair expects the board secretary to act as an agent instead, also results in higher likelihood of board secretary turnover. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms during 2000 and 2007, we find general support to our predictions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13888 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Journal | Academy of Management Proceedings |
| Volume | 2012 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2012 |
| Externally published | Yes |