Directors' multiple role identities, identification and board monitoring and resource provision

Scholars and practitioners alike are interested in board effectiveness yet we know relatively little about directors' engagement and involvement in the boardroom. We integrate identity theory research from organizational behavior with literature on board monitoring and resource provision to model how directors' multiple role identities can affect their behavior. We propose directors' multiple role identities and the strength of identification with each role affects the extent to which they engage in monitoring and resource provision. Specifically we propose directors' strength of identification with the organization, director and shareholder roles has a positive relationship with both board monitoring and resource provision. Directors' identification with his/her CEO role, however, is positively related to resource provision yet negatively related to monitoring. Further, director identification with the stakeholder role has a positive relationship with monitoring but an inverted-U relationship to resource provision. We discuss implications of these individual and combined effects for corporate governance research and practice.