1.3 Research setup and outline

The research approach of this study is threefold and is depicted in Figure 1-2. Part I addresses the economic approach. The economic approach starts with Chapter 2 that gives an overview of the existing economic definitions of independence. Chapter 3 describes the views of five economic theories on the concept of independence in order to answer the research question about the aim of independence. The first part continues with the research question about the consequences of independence with Chapter 4, which gives a literature review on research that has focused on the relationship between independence and performance. This literature review is used in Chapter 5, which aggregates the results from prior research on the relationships between independence and performance by means of a meta-analysis.

Part II is dedicated to legislation and regulation with respect to independence in the three chosen countries: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden. This part addresses all three research questions: the definition, aim and consequences are discussed. Chapter 6 first provides an overview of the legal analysis that has been conducted. Thereafter, Chapters 7, 8 and 9 analyse the legal systems with respect to independence in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively. Chapter 10 concludes the second part of this study and provides a legal comparison between the three countries.

Part III addresses the behavioural approach, which is less thorough than the first two parts, in order to answer the research questions. Chapter 11 describes the behavioural aspects of independence. Besides economic and legal arguments, there are other factors that influence independence, the view on independence and the results. Examples of these factors are cultural aspects, social relationships and the groupthink theory. Chapter 12 provides the results of a survey among supervisory directors in the Netherlands about their view on independence, which is used as a reflection of the findings in this study.

Finally, chapter 13 concludes this study and uses the answers to research questions from the three approaches to address the main research question and provides some recommendations. The conclusion of each chapter in this study contains one or more considerations. These considerations are used in chapter 13 to base the final conclusion on and to formulate the recommendations of this study.