 | MARILIEKE ENGBERS
Organizational Behaviour Dissertation title How the unsaid shapes decision-making in boards: A reflexive exploration of paradigms in the boardroom Date and location October 14, 2020 at 11:45 in the Aula of the Main Building of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Life registration on: http://www.youtube.com/VUBeadlesOffice |
How the unsaid shapes decision-making in boards: A reflexive exploration of paradigms in the boardroom
Despite board of directors are of institutional importance, scholars still have a limited understanding of boardroom processes. Uncovering the black box of board decision-making requires direct observation of what goes on in the boardroom and overcoming many methodological challenges. This abductive subjective account reflexively explored board’s decision-making, not through what is said, but through the unsaid. The author observed 37 board meetings of 17 boards and interviewed 119 board members about what happened during those meetings. The author more specifically explored how board members responded ‘in action’, what they had not said and why and when they consciously or ‘preconsciously’ chose to silence their thoughts and feelings. Putting the unsaid, instead of the said, front and center, meant exploring the difference between what is said and thought, and thus how blind spots, incongruities and perceived incongruities, shape board decision-making.
This dissertation offers an emerging explanation of 1) how taken for granted and automatic, socio-cognitive processes between board members shape board decision-making; 2) how board members who consider their governance paradigm objective - and therefore, are considered paradigm-attached - enact a spiral of unsaid when they try to manage silent conflicts through informal decision-making 3) how four silence climates shape four different levels of cohesiveness and cognitive conflict towards board effectiveness and 4) how being aware of different levels of consciousness and perspective is required to investigate ‘taken for granted assumptions’ as well as automatic behavior in boards.
Short biography:
Marilieke Engbers (1969) completed her PhD at the School of Business and Economics at the VU University Amsterdam. She combines her lectures on strategy realization for the VU Finance and Control Program with consulting work for Reconsulting on board effectiveness, self-evaluations, strategy and leadership. During her PhD Marilieke was assigned by the Housing Associations Authority to research how board’s monitor the risks of long tenured CEO’s. She published the report ‘Kracht en Tegenkracht’ in 2019.