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This Element deals with leadership and governance of corporations from the point of view of the board. We expand our understanding of board leadership by focusing on the modern company as a legal person comprised of a capital fund and the relationships among directors, shareholders, management and stakeholders.

This Element explores key institutional characteristics of several Asian economies relevant to corporate governance practices. The book also reviews corporate governance codes in those economies, examining their requirements. It shows recent trends related to corporate governance such as executive compensation and independent directors on boards.

This Element shapes the discussion about corporate governance and boards of directors. The arena for boards and corporate governance is not static. In Boards, Governance and Value Creation (Cambridge, 2007) Morten Huse accumulated knowledge about boards with a focus on behavioural perspectives. The present contribution reflects on what has been happening during recent years. It contributes to the literature around sustainable value creation in business and society. This Element brings an update of the content of the 2007 book, and thus provides a resource for students - as well as for reflective practitioners.

Impact of corporations on the economies and societies of all countries has focused attention on the importance of corporate governance. As the adequacy of the existing dominant paradigms of corporate governance are increasingly challenged, the search for coherent new paradigms is a vital task for corporate governance in the future.

In this Element the origins of corporate governance are reviewed, recognising that corporate entities have always been governed, that important evolutions took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the huge significance of the invention of the joint-stock limited liability company.

The collapse of trust can be found across all of our institutions but most of all in finance. This Element seeks to answer an existential question: how to rebuild trust in distrusting times? Integrity, responsibility and accountability must be embedded into corporate mission statements, values and codes of conduct. Through organisational and regulatory design across five interlocking themes - legal, regulatory, managerial, ethical and social. What is required is substantive rather than technical compliance; warranted rather than stated commitment to high ethical standards; effective deterrence strategies; enhanced accountability; and a shared commitment to risk within negotiated, binding and enforceable parameters.

Boards of directors are at the apex of organisational decision-making and so are central in ensuring effective corporate governance. But boards are under increasing scrutiny due to the continuing prevalence of scandals and failures. Boards have been viewed as set up to fail because the demands placed upon them cannot effectively be delivered. In this Element, I examine this tension and look at the board as a working group, one which has an input, a process and an output. Through looking at the board as a group, the dynamics of how boards, and the potential for effective and ineffective operation, are highlighted. I conclude with outlining how the future of board dynamics may evolve.

"Abstract: This Element is an attempt to contribute to the extant literature on boards and corporate governance by exploring in detail the active involvement of the board in the purpose and strategy of the corporation in order to cope with a complex and uncertain environment. Keywords: corporate governance, board of directors, corporate strategy, corporate purpose, uncertainty and complexity"--