Does the Game of Mates extend to board appointments? According to Sherene Smith‘s research, a large number of directors sit on multiple boards having been parachuted there courtesy of sitting mates on said board. In the “boys’ club” corporate world, where “people we know” are preferenced over outsiders, is it any wonder we see group think mentality leading to boards signing off on questionable business practices [like AMP], asks Smith.
SOCIAL CONNECTIONS drive board appointments and more than two-thirds of directors in the 200 largest public companies are on the board of multiple companies. With the announcement by AMP last week that former Commonwealth bank chief executive David Murray would join the board as its new chairman, it was a no-brainer that ex-AMP chairwoman Catherine Brenner’s replacement would be drawn from a small pool of people.
David Murray's appointment as chair of AMP disected in this trade magazine
Interesting take!"echo chamber elitism"
"Like 'La Cosa Nostra' they seem only to trust insiders when insiders are precisely the ones they should fear most."#BankingRC https://t.co/pzmCUkj3IK
— Bruce Robertson (@barobertson111) May 8, 2018
Brenner resigned after the Financial Services Royal Commission heard AMP had misled regulators, among a number of other scandals.
Treasurer Scott Morrison expects more resignations at the Commonwealth Bank following a damning report from the banking regulator.
I’ve interviewed directors, as well as looked at data from ongoing surveys of Australia’s top 200 public companies, and found there aren’t a lot of outsiders.
Read more: There’s no evidence that income management works … so why introduce it?
We can see this anecdotally as well. ANZ chairman David Gonski is a mentor to ex-AMP chairwoman Catherine Brenner. Gonski was also chairman of Coca-Cola Amatil when Brenner was appointed to the board in 2008.
Meanwhile Brenner’s sister-in-law, Maxine Brenner, sits on the boards of Orica Ltd, Origin Ltd and Qantas Airways.
The corporate governance crisis in Australia will not be solved by greater gender diversity on boards or director independence given how many directors sit on multiple boards and how important social connections are to get there. It shows there truly is no diversity or independence on Australian company boards.
Big Four: guardians of the guards infiltrate the infiltrators
Board diversity is barely improving
Women held just 18.1 per cent of the board seats in ASX100 companies in 2012. This improved marginally to 25.2 per cent by 2015.
In 2015, 58 per cent of the directors in the ASX100 (the 100 largest companies on the ASX) and 49 per cent in the ASX200 (the 200 largest) were personally connected to the companies. This means they were either a substantial shareholder, supplier, customer, former executive, founder, adviser or had “a material contract” with the company on which board they served.
Having a vested interest in a company can impair a director’s judgment. It may motivate a director to serve their own interests and not look after the best interests of a company and its stakeholders, as seen with the failure of Enron and HIH Australia.
Excluding outsiders
My interviews with directors suggest that board members are recruited in a fashion that excludes qualified “outsiders”. For instance, one director told me that identifying the most qualified person was not necessarily the focus of recruitment:
What was decided was that those of us who were at the board could look at who we knew … I was not comfortable with that process and I fought that process and didn’t win. My preference was that we advertise for appointed members, but the feeling around the table was we would rather have people we know rather than people who come from an ad, and I didn’t get far pushing that change. I felt it was a boys’ club and I wasn’t happy with it. Being honest, it wasn’t casting the net wide enough.
When I pressed my interviewees on how they achieved board membership, many reflected on skills, qualification and experience. However, when the interviewees spoke about recruiting new board members the process is unstructured, featuring factors such as “reputation” and “background”. One interviewee said:
The background of the candidate is very important so you feel comfortable, or you feel there’s less chance of making a mistake if you choose this person.
Read more: Experienced shareholders better than independent directors for business
My research found that the social identity of candidates is a significant criterion in the selection of Australian company boards. Closed social networks are the primary means of identifying new board members.
What attempts there are to increase diversity and independence are narrowly focused on eliminating the “boys’ club” by having more females on boards.
This violates discrimination legislation that states recruitment should be open and accessible, based on clear assessment of skills, training and relevant experience.
Of course the women are the first to go https://t.co/ONIYP51l3m
— Jenny Haines (@Jennhain) May 8, 2018
The use of closed networks in the recruitment and selection of board members also creates other problems related to “group think”. Group think creates a situation where board members are more concerned with being a liked and connected member of a particular social group. As a result members will conform to the status quo, which guarantees them membership perks such as highly paid directorship roles.
A direct outcome of the group think mentality are boards signing off on questionable business practices as we currently see in the banking sector. Coupled with a self-regulated system this is a recipe for disaster.
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Sherene Smith
Sherene Smith is a PhD student at RMIT University. Her PhD thesis explores corporate governance issues in Australia from a sociological perspective and primarily evaluates board recruitment systems and practices, examining how institutional factors influence the usefulness of boards.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
.@AMP_AU appoints renowned #climatechange denier David Murray as its new Chairman. Apparently, this is the kind of new thinking and fresh start amp wants to tackle the challenges of tomorrow. https://t.co/zRJ3JJ5tnC pic.twitter.com/ISUPcYoXGT
— Market Forces (@market_forces) May 4, 2018
Sherene Smith is a PhD student at RMIT University. Her PhD thesis explores corporate governance issues in Australia from a sociological perspective and primarily evaluates board recruitment systems and practices, examining how institutional factors influence the usefulness of boards.