Tag: “shareholder preeminence theory”
When theories collide: what happens when the shareholder preeminence theory meets the stakeholder theory?
Laurence Fink, the Chair and CEO of BlackRock, has issued his annual letter to public companies, entitled A Sense of Purpose. As in prior years, Fink advocates enhanced shareholder engagement and a focus on long-term strategy development. (See this PubCo post and this PubCo post.) What’s new this year is that he is also advocating that companies recognize their responsibilities to stakeholders beyond just shareholders—to employees, customers and communities. Holy smokes, Milton Friedman, what happened to maximizing shareholder value as the only valid responsibility of corporations?
As the U.S. moves toward deregulation, the U.K. announces new corporate governance reforms
As discussed in this PubCo post, in November of last year, the U.K. Government published a “Green Paper” on Corporate Governance Reform, which, in the face of rising economic inequality, sought “to consider what changes might be appropriate in the corporate governance regime to help ensure that we improve business performance and have an economy that works for everyone.” The Paper requested input on several proposals, including pay-ratio disclosure, giving employees more influence on company boards and making say-on-pay votes binding, leading to “a broad-ranging debate on ways to strengthen the UK’s corporate governance framework.” The results are now in. Corporate Governance Reform, The Government response to the green paper consultation identifies nine proposals for reform that the U.K. Government intends to advance. The reforms, many of which would not require legislation, are expected to become effective by June 2018 to apply in the following fiscal years. Whether any of these reforms will have a significant impact—either at home in the U.K. or as an influence abroad in the U.S.—remains to be seen.
Does the health of the economy depend on getting the role of shareholders right?
Are shareholders really the “owners” of corporations? Even though shareholders have no responsibilities to the corporations they “own”? Should corporations be managed for the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder value? Are shareholders even unanimous in that objective? Is shareholder centricity really the right model for good governance of corporations? What changes in corporate governance have been fueled by the shareholder primacy model? Do those changes make sense? What has been the adverse fallout from the current fastidious devotion to shareholder preeminence? These are just some of the issues addressed in this terrific piece by two Harvard Business School professors, Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine, in the Harvard Business Review. In their view, the “health of the economic system depends on getting the role of shareholders right.” Highly recommend.
BlackRock CEO’s annual letter asks companies to address impact of changes in global environment
by Cydney Posner This year, in his annual letter to corporate CEOs, Laurence D. Fink, CEO of asset manager BlackRock, challenges companies to address the impact of significant political, economic, societal and technological changes on their current strategies for long-term value creation: “As BlackRock engages with your company this year, […]
Is there a fix for short-termism?
by Cydney Posner Much has been written about the problems associated with the prevalence of short-term thinking in corporate America. As noted in a post from The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, a recent academic study revealed that “three quarters of senior American corporate officials […]
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