Instructions and requirements
I would like a dissertation with three chapters that consists of 80 pages. The chapters are:
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Hypotheses
The topic of this thesis is boards. In this study, the impact of information supply of boards on the judgment of non-executive directors (Supervisory board members) are researched. The scientific fields regarding this topic are corporate governance, boardroom, two-tier governance model and public administration or public management.
Requirements chapter 1:
• In the introduction argue the research aim and the questions. The question is: what is the impact of information supply on the judgment of non-executive directors?
• In this study cognitive psychology and behaviorism are combined with corporate governance literature.
• The research gap is that we look at the board from cognitive perspective.
• The main question is: what is the impact of information supply of board on the judgment of non-executive directs?
Requirements chapter 2: literature review
• Perspectives of governing board: Agency theory, steward theory and stakeholder theory.
• Most of the studies in the literature are agency and stewardship theory should be argued.
• Arguing that board research is mainly focus on composition, diversity and performance or effectivity of the organization.
• The assumption in the literature about boards that the board would have a direct impact on organizational effectiveness or performance is not plausible.
• The product of boards is mainly information and judgment about subjects regarding the organization. Therefore, is cognitive/cognition perspective plausible.
• The research is about the relationship of information supply and judgment/decision of non-executive directors in the boards.
• The information supply consists obtain, process and share.
o Obtain: information search and information flow
o Process: confirmation bias, information overload
o Share: cognitive conflict.
o Complexity of information (consist of diversity and volume of information).
• The judgment consists of quality and time:
o Judgment quality: integrative complexity.
o Judgment time.
• In addition to these variables. Also the context of the board and personal factors of non-executive directors are important.
o Context of board:
Effort norms
Sector
Structure of board (number of meetings etc.)
o Personal factors:
Experience of non-executive directors
Tenure
Hours per month to spend for board tasks
Education
Gender
Age
Information processing style of the non-executive director (rational- analytical or intuitive) Coming from dual processing theory.
• The literature review must justify this research question: What is the impact of information supply on the judgment of non-executive directors?
• The literature review must justify the further steps in the research like: first survey and then experimental research. There is less experimental research in the body of knowledge of boards research.
Requirements chapter 3: hypotheses
• Use these hypotheses in the chapter. Start with arguments from the literature to argue the hypothesis:
o The information flow has a positive effect on the judgment quality (integrative complexity) of non-executive directors.
o The information search has a positive effect on the judgment quality (integrative complexity) of non-executive directors.
o Effort norms of boards has a positive moderated effect on the relationship between information search and judgment quality.
o Confirmation bias has a negative impact on the judgment quality.
o Tenure of non-executive directors has a negative moderated effect on the relationship between confirmation bias and judgment quality.
o Cognitive conflict has a positive effect on the judgment quality.
o with a higher complexity of information, the quality of judgment is statistically significantly lower than with a lower complexity of information.
o with a higher complexity of information, the time of judgment is statistically significantly higher than with a lower complexity of information.
o with a higher complexity of information, the information overload of supervisors is statistically significantly higher, than with a lower complexity of information.
o with a higher complexity of information, the confirmation advantage of supervisors is statistically significantly higher than with a lower complexity of information.
o Information processing style has a moderated effect on the relationship between information overload and quality and time of judgment.
o Information processing style has a moderated effect on the relationship between confirmation bias and quality and time of judgment.
• Use the literature list in this document if it is possible. You may use also other relevant references.