Zeitschrift der Academy of Strategic Management

1939-6104

Abstrakt

The role of the boards in strategy development and execution in organizations

Edwin Agwu

Most organizations exist in very competitive and dynamic environment and more often craft strategies that will enable them to not only stay afloat, but to win by achieving their goals more effectively than their competitors. Strategy in this context is the selection of the organisation's goals and developing ways that will enable them to achieve these set goals. It is also an iterative process where different ways to achieve an organisation's goal (goals) are tried and refined in an effort to become more effective and efficient in customer satisfaction. It is typically characterised by being long term and uncertain. More often, it is the management team that proposes and presents the strategic plans to the board of directors. This is because it is believed that the management is best able to dedicate time to strategic thinking and more likely to have greater industry knowledge and experience. The boards generally are responsible for overall governance and these includes oversight functions of organisational performance and compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements of the organization and they also serve as watchdogs of the management teams. Furthermore, it is the board’s duty to understand, test and endorse the organizations strategies. This study being descriptive in approach, employed secondary data for the review of various published works with the synthesis of various theories. Findings reveal clear misunderstandings of meanings and the exact roles of boards. This study contends that for better performances, boards should among others, be actively involved in both the development and execution of organizational strategies to ensure a holistic achievement of all round growth of the organization