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 says “maximize shareholder value.” We trace the origins of the debates from the late nineteenth century, their implications for accepted law and practice of corporate governance in the United States, and their reflection in shareholder versus stakeholder views in the organization studies literature and contractarian versus…