期待已久的Derek Higgs关于公司非执行董事的角色和效度的研究于2002年1月发表。作为对不久前美国和英国发生的多起公司丑闻的回应,该报告的主要目的在于发现现行董事会系统的缺陷之处,“它为什么没有有效阻止人们所看到的那些‘非正统’行为的出现?” The much awaited study by Derek Higgs on the role and validity of non-executive directors of the company was published in January 2002. In response to the recent corporate scandals in the United States and Great Britain, the main purpose of the report was to find flaws in the current system of boardrooms, “why it did not effectively stop the appearance of what people see as” unorthodox “behavior ? ”