Board capital activation and crisis recovery: director evidence on crisis knowledge

Crisis episodes raise governance stakes and shorten decision windows, resulting in limited empirical access to board conduct once crisis conditions prevail. Prior work centers on risk-management systems and crisis communication, with board involvement in resource mobilization and strategic reconfiguration under shock remaining comparatively under-specified. Drawing on board capital theory and Bourdieu’s capital conversion logic, this study defines board capital activation as the process through which directors’ latent human and social capital becomes coordinated board action during crisis episodes, and specifies prior crisis knowledge as a conditioning factor shaping activation. Data derive from semi-structured director key informant reports from Nr = 81 corporate directors, each describing one focal crisis episode spanning multiple crisis types. Crisis onset is anchored at T0 and recovery is assessed at T1, six months post-onset; the mechanism model is estimated via PLS-SEM with bootstrapped inference. The model tests whether board human and social capital predict capital activation and whether capital activation predicts recovery at T1, with crisis knowledge conditioning the social-capital-to-activation link. Results indicate positive links from board human capital and board social capital to capital activation, a strong activation-to-recovery relationship, and an interaction in which crisis knowledge strengthens the social-capital-to-activation pathway, while the human capital interaction is not supported. These findings locate board influence in activation embedded in the governance process and extend board capital theory with a reusable measurement approach suited to crisis settings where direct observation of board deliberation is infeasible.