An exploration of board effectiveness in family businesses using a scaling approach

This study addresses the call for the development of team effectiveness scales that take team context into account. It develops and validates a measurement scale for effectiveness in the specific context of boards of directors in family firms. Results from a validation study based on 90 family businesses indicate that even if board task performance is associated with activities and roles that appear to represent differing views of effectiveness, they share a single, common line of inquiry. Moreover the study confirms that boards can be distinguished according to the degree to which they perceive themselves as more or less effective in performing certain roles. The scale demonstrates diagnostic properties that make it useful for practitioners as well as researchers.