Research & Insights

The IMD Global Board Center undertakes pioneering research into the diverse dimensions of governance challenges.

Research & Insights

The IMD Global Board Center undertakes pioneering research into the diverse dimensions of governance challenges.

We address real-world issues in ways that can be used by boards to improve their performance and play a strategic role in their company’s success. We express aim of developing boards into the competitive advantage that the complexity of today’s world requires. Our research portfolio focuses on connecting theory to the real world of boards. Our approach is not abstract or rules-based, nor wedded to any particular governance system.

Academic articles
Practitioner insights
Case studies
Books, chapters and reports
Conference papers
Conference Paper
More risk-averse or more innovative? The effect of women board members and aspirations on patents

Do women directors make firms more risk-averse or more innovative? We theorize that boards with more women can make firms both, but which one depends on the firm’s attainment discrepancy. Specifically, when performance is poor relative to aspirati…

By Stephen Smulowitz, Malgorzata Kurak and Didier Cossin