Exploring the dynamics of public library board: From a perspective of agency theory

Yeon, Jieun

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/118039 Copy

Description

Title

Exploring the dynamics of public library board: From a perspective of agency theory

Author(s)

Yeon, Jieun

Issue Date

2022-10

Keyword(s)

• Library board
• Library governance
• Library management
• Agency theory
• Public libraries
• Community and civic organizations
• Community engagement

Abstract

In most public libraries in the U.S., the board of trustees is a governing body that makes authoritative decisions to set strategies and goals for fulfilling the needs of their community. Despite the importance of the board in public library governance, public library boards have been neglected in academic research. As a nascent endeavor to study this neglected phenomenon, I investigate the dynamics between a public library board and the library director by applying agency theory, which has been often applied to examine the relationship between the board of directors and the executive officer in for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Agency theory explicates a situation in which "one or more actors (principals) must depend on one or more other actors (agents) to perform certain tasks for them." (Wood, 2010, 184) By using agency theory as a framework to analyze seven observations of public library board meetings, I focus on identifying goal conflicts and information asymmetries, which are the two main assumptions of agency theory, between the public library board and the public library director to find characteristics of the public library board's dynamics. The result of this study will guide the design of a larger study of public library board dynamics and its relationship with its community, especially with underrepresented populations in its community.

Series/Report Name or Number

Proceedings of the ALISE Annual Conference, 2022

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/118039

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21900/j.alise.2022.1068

Copyright and License Information

• Copyright 2022 Jieun Yeon
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

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