Redesigning Board Configurations: Lessons Learned from the Global Financial Crisis

This paper explores the relationships between different board of directors’ configurations and the profitability of Italian listed banks during the previous worldwide financial crisis. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we identify the following three board of directors configurations (archetypes) associated with high performance: a committee-based board, a gender diversity–based board, and a large size–based board. We analyze these configurations and highlight that these configurations favor the advising/ involvement role over the monitoring role of the board of directors. In this way, we contribute to the literature concerning board’s effectiveness in value creation through its functions and, finally, we argue that, during a financial crisis, banks need to structure their board of directors to have a better advising and involving capabilities. Therefore, our paper offers novel insight into how to structure bank boards to achieve better performance during financial crises.