The Corporate Objective Revisited

The Corporate Objective Revisited

The stock market convulsions and corporate scandals of 2001 and 2002 have reignited debate on the purposes of the corporation and, in particular, the goal of shareholder value maximization. We revisit the debate, re-examine the traditional rationales, and develop a set of new arguments for why the preferred objective function for the corporation must unambiguously continue to be the one that sa...

Stakeholder Theory and "The Corporate Objective Revisited"

Stakeholder theory begins with the assumption that values are necessarily and explicitly a part of doing business. It asks managers to articulate the shared sense of the value they create, and what brings its core stakeholders together. It also pushes managers to be clear about how they want to do business, specifically what kinds of relationships they want and need to create with their stakeho...

Stakeholder Theory and "The Corporate Objective Revisited": A Reply

Freeman et al. (2004) offer a spirited rebuttal to our paper “The Corporate Objective Revisited” from the perspective of stakeholder theory. However, they fall short in making a case against the logic of shareholder value maximization. The authors confound issues of “value” and “values,” ignore the rich history of scholarship on related questions, and perhaps misinterpret some of our core argum...

Corporate Lobbying Revisited

Renewing Strength: Corporate Culture Revisited

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