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The Shareholder Value Myth

Author: Lynn Stout

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2012-05-07

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 1605098167

An in-depth look at the trouble with shareholder value thinking and at better options for models of corporate purpose. Executives, investors, and the business press routinely chant the mantra that corporations are required to “maximize shareholder value.” In this pathbreaking book, renowned corporate expert Lynn Stout debunks the myth that corporate law mandates shareholder primacy. Stout shows how shareholder value thinking endangers not only investors but the rest of us as well, leading managers to focus myopically on short-term earnings; discouraging investment and innovation; harming employees, customers, and communities; and causing companies to indulge in reckless, sociopathic, and irresponsible behaviors. And she looks at new models of corporate purpose that better serve the needs of investors, corporations, and society. “A must-read for managers, directors, and policymakers interested in getting America back in the business of creating real value for the long term.” —Constance E. Bagley, professor, Yale School of Management; president, Academy of Legal Studies in Business; and author of Managers and the Legal Environment and Winning Legally “A compelling call for radically changing the way business is done... The Shareholder Value Myth powerfully demonstrates both the dangers of the shareholder value rule and the falseness of its alleged legal necessity.” —Joel Bakan, professor, The University of British Columbia, and author of the book and film The Corporation “Lynn Stout has a keen mind, a sharp pen, and an unbending sense of fearlessness. Her book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the root causes of the current financial calamity.” —Jack Willoughby, senior editor, Barron’s “Lynn Stout offers a new vision of good corporate governance that serves investors, firms, and the American economy.” —Judy Samuelson, executive director, Business and Society Program, The Aspen Institute

The Shareholder Value Myth

Author: Lynn Stout

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2012-05-07

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1605098132

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Distinguished legal scholar Stout proves that there is in fact absolutely no legal obligation for corporations to maximize shareholder value. She looks at new theories that not only better serve the needs of real human beings who invest, but of corporations and society as well.

The Shareholder Value Myth

Author: Lynn Stout

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant

Published: 2012-05

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781459638693

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The Shareholder Value Myth

Author: Lynn Stout

Publisher:

Published: 2012-05-07

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780369316134

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Proves that shareholder primacy has no basis in law or economics and does not deliver better bottom - line results. Suggests better ways to think about shareholders and their relationship to corporations Written by one of America's most distinguished legal scholars, Executives, investors, and the business press routinely chant the mantra that corporations are required to ''maximize shareholder value.'' The results have been disastrous. ''Shareholder primacy'' thinking causes corporate managers to focus myopically on short - term earnings reports at the expense of long - term performance; discourages investment and innovation; harms employees, customers, and communities; and causes companies to indulge in reckless, sociopathic, and socially irresponsible behaviors. It's the kind of thinking that led directly to the recent worldwide economic collapse. Jack Welch, once a shareholder primacy true believer, has famously called it ''the dumbest idea in the world.'' Lynn Stout proves that there is in fact no legal obligation for corporations to maximize shareholder value - scholars, lawyers, and corporate officers just assumed there was. Nor, she demonstrates, is maximizing shareholder value the optimal economic model - that's just another unproven assumption, one that is conceptually muddled and, Stout shows, unsupported by the actual evidence on what drives good corporate performance. As if this wasn't enough, Stout also shows how shareholder primacy actually hurts individual investors by obscuring their real, diverse, human interests in the name of serving a hypothetical, homogeneous, abstract, and conscienceless shareholder. Stout looks at new theories that better serve the needs not only of actual human beings who invest but of corporations and society as well. ''Calm, careful, plainspoken, and relentless argumentation that peels away the distracting layers of abstract mumbo jumbo to expose the lunacy of the underlying theory for all to see. Lynn Stout does the world a great favor in exposing shareholder value theory for what it is: flawed and damaging.'' - Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and author of Fixing the Game.

Cultivating Conscience

Author: Lynn Stout

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-10-04

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 140083600X

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How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperity Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly—few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues—instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others—have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass. This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder

Author: David Webber

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2018-04-02

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0674972139

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When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd’s boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway’s to shine a light on labor’s most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor’s capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic’s surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor’s access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength.

Benefit Corporation Law and Governance

Author: Frederick Alexander

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2017-10-16

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1523083603

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Corporations with a Conscience Corporations today are embedded in a system of shareholder primacy. Nonfinancial concerns—like worker well-being, environmental impact, and community health—are secondary to the imperative to maximize share price. Benefit corporation governance reorients corporations so that they work for the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders. This is the first authoritative guide to this new form of governance. It is an invaluable guide for legal and financial professionals, as well as interested entrepreneurs and investors who want to understand how purposeful corporate governance can be put into practice.

The Cambridge Handbook of Stakeholder Theory

Author: Jeffrey S. Harrison

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-09

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1107191467

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A comprehensive foundation for stakeholder theory, written by many of the most respected and highly cited experts in the field.

Citizen Capitalism

Author: Lynn A. Stout

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1523095660

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Corporations have a huge influence on the life of every citizen—this book offers a visionary but practical plan to give every citizen a say in how corporations are run while also gaining some supplemental income. It lays out a clear approach that uses the mechanisms of the private market to hold corporations accountable to the public. This would happen through the creation of what the authors call the Universal Fund, a kind of national, democratic, mega mutual fund. Every American over eighteen would be entitled to a share and would participate in directing its share voting choices. Corporations and wealthy individuals would donate stocks, bonds, cash, or other assets to the fund just like they do to other philanthropic ventures now. The fund would pay out dividends to its citizen-shareholders that would grow as the fund grows. The Universal Fund is undoubtedly a big idea, but it is also eminently practical: it uses the tools of capitalism, not government, to give all citizens a direct influence on corporate actions. It would be a major institutional investor beholden not to a small elite group of stockholders pushing for short-term gain but to everyone. The fund would reward corporations that made sure their actions didn't harm people, communities, and the environment, and it would enable them to invest in innovations that would take more than a few months to pay off. Which is another reason corporations would donate to the fund—they could be freed from the constant pressure to maximize their quarterly share price and would essentially be subsidized for doing good. The authors demonstrate that our current economic rules force corporations to be shortsighted and even destructive because for most large investors, nothing matters but share price. The Universal Fund is designed to be a powerful positive balancing force, making the world a better place and the United States a better nation.

Human Rights, Corporate Complicity and Disinvestment

Author: Gro Nystuen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-09-22

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1139501682

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How can businesses and their shareholders avoid moral and legal complicity in human rights violations? This central and contemporary issue in the field of ethics, politics and law is of concern to intergovernmental organizations such as the UN and to many NGOs, as well as investors and employees. In this volume legal scholars and political philosophers identify and address the intertwined issues of moral and legal complicity in human rights violations by companies and those who invest in them. By describing the legal aspects of human rights violations in the corporate sphere, addressing the complicity of companies with regard to such norms and exploring the influence of investors, the book provides a thorough introduction to corporate social responsibility. Human Rights, Corporate Complicity and Disinvestment will set the research agenda on socially responsible investment for years to come.