Board Practices Quarterly
Insights and benchmarking data for board practices
Board Practices Quarterly is a quarterly series of reports, done in collaboration with the Society for Corporate Governance, providing pulse survey benchmarks on relevant topics for boards.
Board oversight of AI trends
April 2025
The potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize businesses is immense. For example, it can help improve customer experiences, supply chain optimization, innovation, and decision-making. It can also increase financial, reputational, data privacy and security, and bias risks, and it can yield misinformation. The implications of how AI is changing the business landscape reinforce the need for robust governance practices and board oversight. This Board Practices Quarterly builds upon our 2023 issue, which was also focused on AI. Based on a survey of public company members of the Society for Corporate Governance, it covers company and board AI practices, including functional areas of AI responsibility and implementation; board oversight responsibilities and agendas; and employee utilization of AI tools.
Director onboarding and orientation
December 2024
Onboarding and orientation are critical processes that can help integrate new board members into the governance structure and culture of an organization. While specific onboarding and orientation practices vary across companies, done effectively, they can help set the appropriate tone for a new director’s experience and promote critical engagement with the board, management, and other key stakeholders of the organization. This Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a survey of members of the Society for Corporate Governance that focused on their company director orientation and onboarding processes, including materials provided, management participation, practices and activities, and engagement of external providers.
Board oversight of culture
July 2024
Corporate culture is a critical area of board oversight. Closely tethered to corporate strategy and risk, culture failures can upend a company. On the flip side, the benefits associated with a positive culture are mission critical and can include business and financial resilience, reputation and goodwill, reduced employee misconduct, and higher employee engagement and productivity. This Board Practices Quarterly looks at how boards oversee corporate culture. It presents findings from a survey of members of the Society for Corporate Governance that included questions pertaining to the board’s role in approving the company definition for culture; where primary oversight of culture resides; information being reported to the board—and how often and by whom; and shareholder engagement.
Evolving lines of responsibility between the board and management
March 2024
As the business environment continues to evolve in complexity, so does the oversight role of boards. This Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a survey of members of the Society for Corporate Governance on the board’s leadership structure, independence, and involvement in a number of business matters, including activities related to corporate strategy, human capital, risk and risk management, and operations.
CEO succession planning processes
December 2023
The CEO is, in many cases, the alter ego of the company to many of its constituencies and is inevitably intertwined with its strategic direction, operations, and reputation. It is therefore not surprising that many posit that CEO succession planning is among the board’s primary responsibilities. This Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a survey of members of the Society for Corporate Governance and focuses on the CEO succession planning process, including the content of the plan, who has primary responsibility, frequency of review, and related public disclosure.
Board oversight of talent
April 2023
To keep pace, many boards have expanded their remits to include these topics, which traditionally have been solely within management’s purview. How this is being manifested in the boardroom is the focus of this Board Practices Quarterly. The report presents findings from a survey of members of the Society for Corporate Governance that sought to understand board and committee practices relating to oversight of talent and human capital matters and whether and how those practices have evolved over the past five years.
Back to basics: Board composition and refreshment
January 2023
This edition of Board Practices Quarterly looks at director recruitment practices and priorities—including the most and least often recruited professional backgrounds and diverse attributes—and refreshment triggers, policies, practices, and tools. It is based on the findings of a November 2022 survey of Society for Corporate Governance members representing 135 public companies.
Back to basics: Board education and evaluations
September 2022
It’s critical that boards keep themselves apprised of the rapidly evolving governance landscape and regularly evaluate their performance. This Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a July 2022 survey of Society for Corporate Governance members that addressed, among other matters, board and committee education topics and board assessment facilitation processes and related disclosure.
Back to basics: Board committees
June 2022
This issue of Board Practices Quarterly from Deloitte and the Society for Corporate Governance presents findings from a May 2022 survey of Society for Corporate Governance members to understand current board committee structure, composition, and related practices, and how some of these practices have evolved over the past year.
Back to basics: Board meetings
March 2022
This Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a February 2022 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance to understand long-term changes made in response to the pandemic in practices such as board meeting formats, virtual meeting approaches, attendance practices, and materials and agendas.
The outspoken corporation
August 2021
This Board Practices Quarterly looks at how companies approach public engagement on social, political, environmental, or public policy issues and the related role of the board. It presents findings from a July 2021 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance that addressed, among other matters, designation of a company spokesperson; governing documentation; the role of management; board oversight and practices; and stakeholder engagement.
Cyber oversight
May 2021
This issue of the Board Practices Quarterly presents findings from a March 2021 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance about how their companies’ boards oversee cybersecurity and cyber risk—including matters relating to board composition and structure, management’s reporting to the board, board information sources, and shareholder engagement—as well as voluntary corporate disclosure practices.
2021 boardroom agenda
February 2021
This issue of the Board Practices Quarterly identifies some of the key areas and trends expected to be on boardroom agendas this year, according to a December 2020 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance. These areas look beyond perennial agenda items, such as strategy and risk, and instead focus on new and emerging topics as many companies continue to respond to unanticipated events that unfolded during 2020.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
September 2020
This inaugural Board Practices Quarterly explores some ways in which companies and boards have responded to these recent events and other management- and board- focused practices pertaining to DEI. It presents findings based on an August 2020 survey of members, representing more than 200 companies, of the Society for Corporate Governance. We would expect the findings to evolve over time, particularly as they pertain not only to corporate governance, but also to a societal matter, where calls for action and change appear to be ongoing and growing.
Access previous editions of the Board Practices Report:
