SHARPE - JCI.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 3/28/2012 8:12 PM ARTICLES PROCESS OVER STRUCTURE: AN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR APPROACH TO IMPROVING CORPORATE BOARDS NICOLA FAITH SHARPE* ABSTRACT History has shown that the scholarly and regulatory focus on board composition and structure is a dangerously incomplete solution to the problems that have caused recent corporate failures. The media and corporate scholars have assigned much of the blame for the 2008 financial crisis and the Enron-era corporate scandals to corporate boards. The conventional diagnosis of these ills is that boards were largely at fault because they failed to effectively monitor corporate officers. Unfortunately the conventional diagnosis of the problem is incomplete and the policy prescriptions flowing from this faulty diagnosis are unlikely to address the very real problems that continue to plague corporate governance. * Associate Professor of Law and Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Scholar, University of Illinois College of Law. J.D., Yale University, M.B.A., Yale University, B.A. Cornell University. Email:
[email protected]. © 2012 Nicola Faith Sharpe. For helpful comments and suggestions, I am grateful to Michael Abramowicz, Jena Martin Amerson, Lisa Fairfax, George Geis, Patrick Keenan, Donald Langevoort, Larry Ribstein, Usha Rodrigues, Arden Rowell, Jamelle Sharpe, Lynn Stout, Suja Thomas, Cindy Williams, and participants in the faculty workshops at the George Washington University Law School Center for Law, Economic, and Finance, Northwestern University School of Law, the University of Illinois College of Law, and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. I would also like to thank participants in the Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Notre Dame Law School faculty workshops at which I presented some of the ideas found in this Article.