Optimizing board composition: a goal programming approach to balancing expertise, governance and diversity
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: How should organizations select board members when they must balance expertise, oversight, diversity and practical constraints such as board size? This paper introduces a structured decision-making framework designed to support board composition under the UK’s ‘comply or explain’ governance regime. The approach first identifies boards that meet minimum requirements for competence, financial oversight, and equity, diversity and inclusion, and then selects those that provide the strongest overall balance of skills while remaining appropriately sized. Two contrasting perspectives are examined. The first, equality of outcome (EOu), incorporates explicit diversity and representation targets. The second, equality of opportunity, focuses on merit and fiduciary capability without imposing outcome-based constraints. Using publicly available data on a major listed company, the analysis shows that boards constructed under EOu can achieve stronger representation while maintaining, and in some cases improving, overall capability. The framework also provides practical diagnostic tools that allow organizations to test whether excluded candidates could reasonably have been selected, offering a transparent way to assess fairness and potential legal or reputational risk. The approach is implemented in a flexible computational setting and can be adapted to a wide range of board and leadership selection problems.
Author: Howard Haughton
Institution: King's College London
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,718
OpenAlex ID: W7156144715