Corporate governance is central to improving the performance of all institutions and not just commercial entities. All board members aside from their fiduciary or stewardship responsibilities to stakeholders have a much bigger potential. Transition to a corporate governance model that builds value rather than accepting complacency or defence of the status quo can make a very real difference to many, many people.

Business and wider-interest media have rightly commented on topics like challenges to the integrity of directors, the transparency of decisions and appointment of directors and directors' fee increases when performance of the entity has been less than satisfactory. Such issues need to be addressed but considered responses by regulators and professional associations alike need to be made within the context of sustainable long-term improvement in board performance.

Refreshingly, this is not another normative text on how to run meetings; it hits ‘bulls eye' that directors can make a very real difference to sustainable stakeholder welfare. The chapters in the book do traverse elemental building blocks like board structure, board size, diversity among others, emphasising the evidence from international empirical research into, does this make a difference and what is the consensus view, what is the right structure, right size, right level of diversity, etc. The significance of this volume lies in the underpinning rationale of achieving better governance.

R.K. Mishra, Senior Professor and Director, Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Hyderabad, did his PhD from University of Rajasthan. His areas of interest include: corporate governance, international management, international finance, public-private partnership and restructuring and environmental administration.

Stuart Locke has a comprehensive portfolio of research publications in corporate governance and financial performance. He is Chairperson of New Zealand's top research ranked Department of Finance based in the University of Waikato. His scholarly articles have been published in many international academic journals and he balances these with applied work as a Board Member of the Chamber of Commerce and Director of the Institute for Business Research at the University.

D. Geeta Rani is working as Research Fellow, Waikato University, New Zealand and also Visiting Professor at the Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad. She has pursued research and teaching interests relating to corporate governance issues in India, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and more recently in New Zealand.