The Impact of Independent Directors on Organizational Effectiveness in Monetary and In-Kind Stakeholder Dialogue Museums

This study investigates the issue of stakeholder dialogue in the context of art museums. We propose and empirically test the existence of two different kinds of stakeholder dialogue: monetary and in-kind. By relying on a sample of 70 US art museums during the 2007–2010 period, we show that high monetary and high in-kind stakeholder dialogue museums are significantly different. In particular, we test the impact of the number of independent directors on fundraising activity and board monitoring. We find that a higher number of independent directors leads both to better monitoring and to improved fundraising activity, with the effect being stronger for monetary stakeholder dialogue museums.