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Full-Text Articles in Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics
The Ethics Of Shareholder Value: Duty, Rights & Football, Donald Nordberg
The Ethics Of Shareholder Value: Duty, Rights & Football, Donald Nordberg
Donald Nordberg
How does a board of directors decide what is right? The contest over this question is frequently framed as a debate between shareholder value and stakeholder rights, between a utilitarian view of the ethics of corporate governance and a deontological one. This paper uses a case study with special circumstances that allow us to examine the conflict between shareholder value and other bases on which a board can act. In the autumn of 2010 the board of Liverpool Football Club sold the company to another investing group against the wishes of the owners. The analysis suggests the board saw more …
The Ethics Of Corporate Governance, Donald Nordberg
The Ethics Of Corporate Governance, Donald Nordberg
Donald Nordberg
This paper is an early draft of an article that appeared in the Journal of General Management in 2008. How should corporate directors determine what is the "right" decision? For at least the past 30 years the debate has raged as to whether shareholder value should take precedence over corporate social responsibility when crucial decisions arise. Directors face pressure, not least from "ethical" investors, to do the "good" thing when they seek to make the "right" choice. Corporate governance theory has tended to look to agency theory and the need of boards to curb excessive executive power to guide directors' …