What are the responsibilities of the board of directors?

Please provide an example of a board of

directors that did not meet its responsibilities.

Board has many duties: oversee management, finances; set strategic direction; build
community relationships; establish ethical standards and its compliance; selecting a CEO and
monitor his or her progress, etc. Although, the responsibilities of board of directors diverging
from country to country or among business organizations, there are major responsibilities of the
board that followed by almost corporations.

Setting organization strategy or overall direction: The board has an important role in
providing the vision, mission and goals of the organization. These are often
determined in combination with the CEO or general manager of the business.

Hiring and firing the CEO and top management: Boards need to aggressively search
for the best possible candidate for this position. There were many cases showed that
board failed to find out the suitable person for those positions.

Supervising top management: Recruiting, supervising, evaluating and compensating

the CEO or general managers, these are probably the most important functions of the
board of directors.

Reviewing and approving the use of resources: Periodically the board interacts with
the CEO during meetings of the board of directors. It might a monthly board meeting,
or some boards have decided to meetings quarterly. In the intervening time between
these meetings, the board should follow up the business performance by conference
call/meeting.

Caring shareholder interests: The board has a fiduciary responsibility to represent and
protect the investors interest in the company. The board has to make sure the assets
of the company of which are managed and grown up in good order. This includes the
stock value, companys plant, equipment and facilities, including the human capital,
etc.

In business history, there were many cases the board of directors failed to meet their
responsibilities and led to failure of the corporation. A decade ago, a little-known Canadian
company named Research In Motion launched the BlackBerry device, a "push" email device
with a built-in QWERTY keyboard. The BlackBerry did one thing fabulously - it enabled
corporate users to use email from just about anywhere. Five years later, RIM was on top of the
world. Then the iPhone, Google's Android platform came to the market, and the birth of the
tablet. The market went nuts for these new devices, which came with features like multi-touch
displays, virtual keypads, and tons of third-party apps. Meanwhile, RIM's board of beancounters and their co-CEOs did virtually nothing while the company lost the market it helped
create - and over $70 billion in market value. RIM was failed to set up and executive the strategy
upon the changes of technology and market demand, also they failed to supervise the CEO
performance or taking care of shareholder interests.
Reference

Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2012). Concepts in strategic management and business policy
(13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.