Evolution or revolution? Changes in Britain's boards of directors from 1960 to 2010

The governance of Britain’s listed companies has gone through profound changes in the last fifty years. The composition of the board of directors, the role of the chairman, the relationship between directors and shareholders — these and other elements in the corporate governance system look very different today from the arrangements which prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s. In this book, published fifty years after Spencer Stuart opened its first office in London, Sir Geoffrey Owen traces the development of boards from 1960 to the present day, always in the context of the changing business environment. Today’s boards of directors face a different set of challenges from the ones their predecessors had to deal with. We consider how well equipped they are to meet these challenges, and whether the crescendo of corporate governance reforms have helped them to do so.