Conference Board, The

History

The Conference Board was founded by business leaders as a nonprofit entity in 1916 in response to the public's lack of confidence in business and rising labor unrest. During the next several decades, the Board established the first Conference Board Council of Human Resources Executives; conducted research on various labor issues in the United States, such as working women and safety in the workplace; and began to track trends in the cost of living across America, directors' compensation, and corporate contributions. From the 1950s through the 1970s, it launched research on [Page 396]the impact of the federal budget on the United States and world economies and engaged in consumer research. From the 1980s to date, the Board has emphasized the study of corporate governance and the economy. Since the 1990s, its perspective has become increasingly global, as reflected in its design of business cycle indicators for eight nations (previously published only for the United States) and the establishment of the Asia Business Initiative and the Conference Board China Center for Business and Economics.

Areas of Focus

The Conference Board lists its areas of focus as follows: corporate citizenship, corporate governance, economics, human resources, marketing/communications, and strategy/planning. Corporate citizenship, which the Board defines as the interaction of corporations with their communities, is closely linked to the concept of social responsibility. The Conference Board includes under this category the environment, health and safety, community relations, corporate contributions, and sustainability. Examples of the Board's corporate citizenship initiatives are the annual Corporate Contributions Report, an analysis of the giving patterns of major corporations, and the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership, an award established by President Clinton in honor of the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown for a company's outstanding achievements in employee and community relations.

Corporate governance, the Conference Board's second area of focus, might be defined as the manner in which a company is directed or controlled; the Board explains the term as encompassing the role of the board of directors and the performance of top management. Key corporate governance initiatives of the Board in recent years include the formation of (1) the Global Corporate Governance Research Center, which is designed to facilitate communication between business leaders and major institutional investors; (2) the Director's Institute, which provides practical governance education for directors; and (3) the Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise, which published a highly respected and influential report in 2002 and 2003 on executive compensation, corporate governance, codes of conduct, shareholder relations, and accounting and audit practices.

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