The Value Effects of Digital Expertise on Corporate Boards

Board engagement with digital technologies: A resource dependence framework

“…The emergence of DT accelerates fundamental changes in business models (Verhoef et al, 2021), customer value creation (Matarazzo et al, 2021), and enterprise architectures (Kaidalova et al, 2018). Scholars suggest the board of directors needs to respond to digital transformation challenges and opportunities by contributing to value creation (Grove et al, 2018); attracting new capabilities (Verhoef et al, 2021); improving decision-making quality (Ghasemaghaei and Calic, 2019); engaging more frequently and deeply on strategy and risk (Aberg, 2017); and increasing digital skillsets in board composition (Mathew et al, 2020). Additionally, an RDT lens is suggested for board members to establish links that regulate the interdependencies and connections with the environment , providing essential resources to facilitate innovation and capitalize on disruptive DT (He et al, 2020).…”

“…Therefore, digital technologies can be a mechanism for a director to check CEOs honest regarding the information provided to the board, and the information received from the executive team which supports a director decisionmaking. Mathew et al (2020) assert that digitally skilled directors are better drivers of financial performance, and they can facilitates board access to information, therefore levelling information asymmetries. Meanwhile, Balnes et al (2019) highlight that it is the board that needs to construct strategies for upskilling staff, raising capabilities and increasing the use of tools in effective data analysis at all levels of a company to support strategic board decision-making.…”

“…The technology is required to exploit variety and opportunity. This widens board discussions for those considering digitalization to extend strategies or protect firms' competitive advantage (Mathew et al, 2020).…”

“…The contributions of this study may be useful for firm policies and board assessment/evaluations, and in guiding board stakeholders, executives, or regulators. For boards it is a framework that focuses on members' skills, and board structure and composition for better governance (Balnes et al, 2019;Barriuso et al, 2019;Mathew et al, 2020;Grace et al, 1995;Salehi, 2014). Board members and executives can benefit from the findings to support starting points of analysis and discussions about which DT, characteristics, implications, and considerations need to be addressed while strategizing.…”