What are the strongest arguments for combining the roles?

So before we get into the philosophical arguments, I think one of the strongest arguments in practice is keeping your CEO.

That very often in practice, why a company ends up with a combined role is because they have a dynamic, successful CEO who may very well be the founder of the company who wants to be a chair of the company as well.

And that is part of the negotiation to keep their service at the company that they have is combined role.

We can talk philosophically and academically about why Bullards might make that decision, but it's always important to keep in mind that there are practical, personality-driven considerations as well that very often in practice are the real deciding factor.

But there are important philosophical reasons as well why a board would choose to have a combined role, even if in practice the reason is personality-driven.

And the one that you hear the most is unified vision and unified voice.

It's functionally the same thing.