Transcripts of NICB's monthly meetings and Yama Conferences contain descriptions of routine businesses that were transacted as well as addresses by prominent business leaders on the economic and political issues of the day. Of particular interest are the debates over labor-management relations, union recognition, employee benefit plans, the New Deal, and the growing role that the state played in regulating the economy. Debates at annual meetings often described conditions in various industries, most notably automobiles, chemicals, textiles, and rubber. Other issues discussed included: research and development, atomic energy, unemployment compensation, right-to-work laws, industrial mobilization, unemployment compensation, World War II mobilization, the Marshall plan, and civil defense.

Executive Committee minutes document election of officers, selection of topics for NICB reports, relationships with associated trade associations, estimates of revenue and expenses, and discussions of new member applications. The records also document the relationship between the Conference Board and the various state associations of manufacturers.

Correspondence with affiliated organizations consists of letters to and from the various trade associations that were NICB members. Most of the correspondence concerns fund raising, elections of officers, and the recruitment of new members.

Subject files, from the office of presidents Magnus W. Alexander (1916-1930) and Virgil D. Jordan (1931-1965), document NICB's industry studies. They include fragments of survey data, as well as some final reports. Also included are files from the Committee on Industrial Relations (1917-1920), which contain Walter Drew's correspondence with various NICB members and document efforts to draft a labor policies program. The subject files also include survey information on the following subjects: employee absenteeism, compulsory arbitration, bank credit, industrial relations and personnel practices in various industries, holiday practices, group insurance, and workers' compensation.

Surveys on corporate organization were primarily conducted in the 1970s, as the Conference Board sought to compile data on organizational structure and directors' compensation in the Fortune 500 companies. These records consist of staff, personnel and policy manuals, and organization charts, for America's largest firms. Included are annual reports and data on corporate financial structure, cost ratios, and marketing costs, which document corporate strategies for raising capital and the effects of inflation, recession, and federal budget deficits on capital availability.