Board of Directors is a group of well qualified and top-ranked officials, managing as well as executive, who governs and looks after the well being of any company or organization.
One-Tier Board of Directors acts as a single governing body for the organization. . They make unified and mostly strategic settlements for the company.
One-Tier vs Two-Tier Board of Directors
The difference between a One-Tier Structure of Board of Directors and a Two-Tier Structure of Board of Directors is that there is a single committee that makes all the important managerial decisions for the organisation in a One-Tier system, whereas there are two separate committees for the organization’s policymaking in the Two-tier system.
Want to save this article for later? Click the heart in the bottom right corner to save to your own articles box!
In a One-Tier Structure of the Board of Directors, the single committee makes all management decisions. It comprises the executive as well as non-executive directors from the organization.
The two separate boards, Management and Supervisory Boards have separate departments to look after and are headed by two different people.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | One-Tier Board of Directors | Two-Tier Board of Directors |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | One-Tier Board includes both the executive directors from the company and the non-executive directors of the company. Both stand at the same level and have similar authority | Two-Tier Board has a separate management board and supervisory board. The supervisory board is superior in authority and can hire and fire members of the management board |
| Distribution of Roles | One-Tier board has no segregation of authority. Therefore, there is no distribution of authority. Everybody stands at the same level and have the authority to make decisions in unity. | Since in a Two-Tier board, there are two separate boards. Namely, management and supervisory. They have different departments to look after. Management looks after the management of the organization whereas the Supervisory board takes care of the policy-making of the company |
| Involvement of Stakeholder | In a One-Tier Board of Directors, there is not much involvement of the shareholders, since in a board there cannot be many external people involved | Since Two-Tier Board has two boards, and there are different departments there is provision to include members from amongst the shareholders. |
| Chairman and CEO | In One-Tier Board, is lead by the chairman of the board. He supervises the entire board. | In the Two-Tier Board system, where there are two boards, the Management Board is lead by the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and the Supervisory Board is presided by the Chairman of the organization. |
| Making of Decisions | The decisions made by the One-tier board is quicker than Two-tier boards. The reason being that, it is a single and small board, and if all agree, it is final. | In a two-tier board, since there are two segregated boards, they both have to agree for a decision to be made. It takes time. and since the making of decisions and executing are governed by two different boards, it takes much longer |
What is One Tier Board of Directors?
At the topmost level of any organization, whether it is a profit-making company or non-profit making company, there is a committee that makes all the important administrative, managerial, operational as well as financial decisions.
One-Tier Board of Directors pertain to a single committee that presides at the top level of the company’s hierarchy. They make prompt and unanimous decisions and policies which contribute to the betterment of the company.
What is Two-Tier Board of Directors?
Two-Tier Board of directors, as stated above, topmost level in heirarchy of any organization, with the only difference of having two committees or two boards.
Managerial Board makes decisions in terms of management for the company, whereas the supervisory board is takes care of the policy execution and hiring and firing members of the managerial board.
Main Difference Between One-Tier and Two-Tier Board of Directors
- Shareholders do not play a very significant role in the One-tier Board of Directors, whereas there is provision for shareholders involvement and inclusion in the Two-tier Board of Directors.
- In the One-tier Board of Directors, everybody stands at the same level and there is no segregation of authority, whereas in the Two-tier Board of Directors the supervisory committee has higher authority than the Managerial committee.
- https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=fisch_2016
- https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ECFR.2006.019/html
I’ve put so much effort writing this blog post to provide value to you. It’ll be very helpful for me, if you consider sharing it on social media or with your friends/family. SHARING IS ♥️
Chara Yadav holds MBA in Finance. Her goal is to simplify finance-related topics. She has worked in finance for about 25 years. She has held multiple finance and banking classes for business schools and communities. Read more at her bio page.
