Ethical aspects of shareholder value objective

Abstract

Over the past decades, the ideology of shareholder value, which implies that the sole legitimate purpose of the corporation is to maximize shareholder profits, has unquestionably been a dominant principle for corporate governance. Today, there is a significant question-mark over whether shareholder primacy theory provides the proper framework for running companies. The global financial crisis has renewed the fierce discussion about which concept the management of a modern public corporation should primarily follow. At the same time, ethical and sustainability-related issues have received a considerable amount of attention in the strategic management literature. The main objective addressed in this paper is to contribute to the shareholder and stakeholder theory discussion with a closer look taken at some ethical aspects of the adoption of shareholder-value oriented model. The article aims to emphasize that corporations should look beyond the pursuit of shareholder wealth and adopt more modern, socially and ethically conscious business model.

Keywords

• business ethics
• shareholder value
• shareholder value theory
• shareholder value maximization