Leveraging board roles for strategic environmental orientation in emerging economies: evidence from Tunisia

Purpose This study aims to investigate the influence of board roles performance (BRP), namely, monitoring, strategy and service roles, on firms’ strategic environmental orientation (SEO) in the context of an emerging economy, Tunisia. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a multi-theoretical approach that draws from agency theory and resource dependency theory, a questionnaire survey was conducted targeting 204 directors of 102 Tunisian publicly traded companies. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of BRP on SEO. Findings The results reveal a positive relationship between the board’s strategy role and SEO. Conversely, the board’s monitoring role exhibits a negative effect on SEO. However, the service role demonstrates no significant effect on SEO. Practical implications The findings offer guidance to board chairs and policymakers on leveraging different board roles to drive SEO by offering insights about the management of board agenda time and tasks, the relationship with management and the profiles of independent directors that nomination committees should target to promote specific board roles and SEO. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to explore the relationship between BRP and SEO in an emerging economy context. It extends existing theories by providing new insights into board roles beyond structural characteristics and highlighting the necessity of considering specific institutional and cultural contexts of emerging markets when examining board roles’ impact on firms’ environmental orientation.