Nomination Committees in Iceland and Nordic Comparison: An Overview

Nomination committees are becoming increasingly popular. A nomination committee, or a nominating board, is a group or committee responsible for selecting and nominating candidates for a company’s board of directors. The primary purpose of a nomination committee is to identify and recommend qualified individuals who can effectively fulfill the responsibilities of the positions in question. Still, nomination committees’ roles and work processes have not been much researched. Among those issues yet not solved is whether selection practices will be more professional and transparent by the existence of nomination committees. Nonetheless, according to guidelines on good corporate governance, there are existing arguments for how beneficial nomination
committees can be for good governance practices. This research compares and presents similarities and differences regarding nomination committees in the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries, being similar in many ways, have not all taken the same path regarding nomination committees. Hence, it makes an interesting comparison study. Guidelines for governance are similar and, in all essentials, comparable to what is happening in the Nordic countries. Therefore, it must not be forgotten that companies can deviate from the guidelines’ recommendations as their circumstances require. It can be assumed that good governance, including nomination committees, is one of the things that companies should adopt more and more if considering the development in other countries, e.g., the Nordic countries. The activity of foreign investors has also led to jumps in the development of governance practices.