Law Commons^™

The Devil Made Me Do It: Replacing Corporate Directors' Veil Of Secrecy With The Mantle Of Stewardship, Constance E. Bagley, Karen L. Page

San Diego Law Review

This Article argues that the nature of the corporate form coupled with an exclusive focus on shareholder value leads to economically and socially inefficient results. The "profit maximization" view of directors' duties ignores the historical reasons why corporations were given special privileges, such as limited liability, by the state. This narrow view should be replaced with a doctrine of stewardship that imposes a more comprehensive view of the corporation's and directors' responsibility to manage the vast resources held in corporate form. This broader view is consistent not only with the values of a free market economy, but also with modem …