Institutionalisation of employee representatives on boards of directors and the social construction of the board as a practical strategic actor
In this study we attempt to analyse how the implementation of employee representatives on Danish boards of directors transformed labour market relations, and how boards of directors developed integrative rather than aggregative decision making processes. The 1973 legislation granting employees of private Danish companies the right to elect members to the board of directors broke with a 75 year old tradition of labour-management rela-tions. The article analyses the role of the political parties (from a wide political spectrum) to the development of the law. Thereafter the article analyses its implemen-tation. The authors see this development as on of a struggle bet-ween two kinds of logic: aggregative as opposed to integrative logic, or consistency versus practicality. The credibility of these boards depends on the fact that they make decisions from the point of practical logic, but employ consistency logic when they explain these decisions to their voters.
