董事會功能理論模型之驗證：臺灣上市公司董監事的觀點

The Empirical Examination of Theoretical Model for the Functions of Board of Directors: Evidences from Director’s Perception of Listed Companies in Taiwan

董事會不但是公司經營策略之領航者，也是監督最高經營者機會行為之關鍵內部機制，在公司治理中扮演重要且舉足輕重的角色。研究董事會組成與績效關係之學者，穩性假設「董事會透過經營功能角色之實踐，而影響公司經營績效，甚至影響公司的生存」。然而至今，對董事會功能之理論尚未經系統性實證。本研究根據代理論與資源依賴理論，建構董事會多元功能之假說模型，即董事會同時具有控制、策略、資源依賴及服務功能之假說模型，並以線性結構方程式驗證假說模型，為此本研究發展多元項目量表，蒐集上市公司董監事之觀點資料。經LISREL方法實證結果顯示，證實董事會同時具有控制、策略、資源依賴及服務功能之假說模型，而且產生15項具有穩定心理特徵之量表，可資進一步瞭解董事會對企業經營影響之工具。

The Asian financial crisis of the Southeast Asia in 1997 makes many companies and businesses in that area plunged into management crises. In 2001, the financial scandals of Enron and WorldCom broke out in U.S.A. Nowadays reviewing the crisis, researchers who are seeking explanations for why enterprise's fraud and bankrupt would occur, generally thought the crisis lay in the corporate governance failing to implement effectively, especially the function of board of directors fails to fulfill effectively. Because of this, before the reform processes of corporate governance in various country is to begin, Policymakers should deeply understand what board‘s function will be and the functions how to carry out. The board of directors plays a key role in corporate governance. The board of directors is not only the navigator of corporate strategy, but also the key internal mechanism that monitors opportunism behavioral of top management and other managers. As studying the relationship between composition of the board and performance, the researchers had held implicitly assumption “the board of directors can impact on company operating performance and even on company to survive , through fulfilling the board functions.“. This assumption indicate that the board composition is proxy variable for practicing the function of board of directors. Obviously, the board function that was practiced is the key for the success or failure to the company. The companies will face uncertain risk of internal and external environment in fast changing competitive condition. The function of the board of directors is to try to ensure minimum influence of the uncertain risk, in order to improve corporate performance and value. But so far, the function of board of directors still are in theoretical discussion or case investigation, and there is no systemic study on verifying theory of functions of board of directors, especially on the measurement of functions of board of directors. In this study, the hypothetical model which includes the multiple functions of board of directors based on advocacy of agency theory and resource dependence theory; both theories maintain the board of directors includes controlling, strategic, resource dependence and service function at a time. This study applied the linear structural equation model (SEM) to verify the hypothetical model. This study plans to collect the assessing data of the director and supervisors in listed company, but the objective the survey tools for measuring board function could not get in the literature. Thus, this study must develop a multiple item scale which constructs the multiple functions of board of directors, according to theory of development multiple item scale and practice step of development scale in relevant research field. The empirical result by LISREL revealed that hypothetical model was verified and 15 item scales which cover controlling, strategic, resource dependence and service function was produced. The multiple item scale has sound psychological characteristic, can expand and deep understand intension and effects of the function of board of directors. This is a little contribution to academy and practice of this study. The result in this study was to closely meet research find of Daily and Dalton (2005). Daily and Dalton (2005) has few support the avocations of agency theory. They point out that the researcher absorb in agency theory resulting in only seeing single function. In fact, the board of directors do not only act single the role or function., besides monitoring function, there are professional knowledge and consultation that was offered to CEO and other top management. And the composition of directors effectively can assist the company to acquire important information and resource that can improve the chance of success of the company. This is a resource role or function of a board of directors. The affiliated directors can most practice to this role. They further point out, the independence of board of directors does not guarantee the director's quality, have also not represented and ensured company's performance is improved. If researchers and policymaker absorbed in the independence of the board of directors obviously, they will ignore the multiple role or function of the board of directors The result in this study was also to accords with the practice process of board. That is to say, companies will face business risk which can impact on the future of company, such as Surviving, future development, grow up, performance etc. which are provided with high uncertainly. Those uncertain that come from the opportunism behavior of management, on-the-job consumption or ignoring the post, etc., can be called internal risk of organization. Additionally, another main risk source is the random change of the market, technology and regulation, which can be called external environmental risk of organization. In order to survival and development forever, the influence of internal and external risk on companies must be reduced by the board of directors. Therefore, in light of growing up with long-term development in the company, in addition supervising function, the board should prevent the management presenting the behavior which is unfavorable to the company, at the same time. Also, the board should ensure minimum the influence of the external environmental risk factor on company. Simply stated, this study confirmed that the function of board of directors is inherently comprised of multiple management functions.