Board Members’ Religious Affiliations and Corporate Governance Practice: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

The deleterious effects of a black-swan event, COVID-19, on companies and their governance are likely to be wide-ranging and unprecedented. To survive a potentially existential crisis that organizations are currently facing and remain sustainable, they may have to look beyond the standard governance models, leadership styles, and leaders’ attributes. So far, the usual suspects of effective corporate governance have been the sound principles of management and law. The impact of corporate elites’ religious background on their decision-making is seldom explored in the existing literature. However, the Upper Echelon perspective suggests that when faced with uncertain and complex situations, corporate elites turn to their background and experiences. This is done in order to interpret available information and make decisions. This chapter explores if corporate elites’ religious background influences their decision. We conduct the inquiry by interviewing 42 board members of listed companies in the UK. The study’s findings suggest that corporate elites’ religious beliefs shape their value-sets, decisions, and organizations’ strategic aspirations. The findings are explained with the help of interdisciplinary literature. The study’s contribution to theory, literature, and praxis is also discussed. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.