Organizational CaseClaim Cited
OpenAI 2023
OpenAI's November 2023 crisis tested a structure in which a nonprofit board held formal mission authority over a fast-growing commercial operating system. The board removed the CEO, employees and partners rapidly rejected the intervention, and a reconstituted board restored him within days—showing that legal control can fail operationally when its evidence, succession capacity, and stakeholder relationships cannot carry the decision.
What makes mission authority operationally legitimate when a board's formal power depends on people and partners who can refuse to carry its decision?