Essay: The Represented Company

The trace gave the board access. It supplied a narrow route from a material claim to the company that had produced it.

Hierarchy limits access by design: a board cannot hear every fact known by thousands of employees, so managers select who speaks, which cases travel and how much uncertainty arrives with them. Failure begins when the people being governed also control every sample by which the board may inspect their account.

The selection can also be commissioned. A budget holder can choose a brief that examines delivery while leaving the allocation of authority outside its scope…