As a co-operative, it can be hard to know what to do or think about governance, especially as it relates to the matters of selection, tenure, evaluation, and remuneration of the board chair. The vast corporate governance literature is focused on researching and suggesting best practices for investor-owned, publicly traded companies, not co-operatives. Moreover, most of the academic literature focuses on the board as a whole, leaving chair-related matters to consultants and less specialized sources.
This research paper addresses the question of how a co-operative might approach board-chair selection, tenure, evaluation, and remuneration. We start from the assumption that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to these matters—a best practice for one co-operative may not be a best practice for another, even though they may draw inspiration from the same co-operative principles and broader governance literature.