For a long time, the corporate governance literature has been focusing on the relationship between board characteristics and corporate performance, while overlooking the potential impact of the board working process. This study analyzes the impact of key behavioral factors such as information acquisition, effort, trust and cognitive conflict on board governance and constructs a simplified model to describe potential relationships between the board behavior and its governance effectiveness. By means of a questionnaire survey it tests empirically potential effects of the above board behavioral factors on governance effectiveness. The results show that information acquisition and trust significantly and positively affect board governance effectiveness; meeting frequency works positively on the strategic and service roles of the board; neither meeting attendance nor cognitive conflict shows significant effect on board governance effectiveness. The study thus provides new empirical evidence for board governance improvement.