Liminality, purpose, and psychological ownership: Board decision practices as a route to stewardship.

Abstract

The pursuit of director stewardship and its goal of corporate purpose of long-term social value face an obstacle to commitment: the liminality of directors. Non-executive directors sit permanently on the threshold of the organisation, where executive directors are expected to join them. Liminality is thought to entail freedom from hierarchy and creative space – the service role of boards. But that clashes with a board agenda increasingly weighted towards compliance – its control role. Through a series of thought experiments, fictional cases drawn from real life experiences, this chapter explores how the collective engagement of directors in decision practices can induce the development of commitment and psychological ownership that stewardship requires.