Shareholder Value

Does a Trade-off Need to Stay a Trade-off?

Roger Martin | Posted 03.20.2012

Roger Martin

Will there continue to be trade-offs between shareholder value maximization and social good? Absolutely. We live in an imperfect world. Does there have to be a trade-off between the two in all instances? Only if we collectively decide to make it so. Let's not.

Little Sally Learns About the Toxicity of Shareholder Value Maximization

Roger Martin | Posted 03.19.2012

Roger Martin

If given forthright answers, even a 10-year-old can figure out that shareholder value maximization isn't even vaguely motivating for employees. And yet it is a common rallying cry for many companies. Pathetic.

Steve Jobs Made Sure Apple's Main Mission Was Satisfied Customers, not Profits

Judith Samuelson | Posted 12.11.2011

Judith Samuelson

Focus on quality and excellence in delivering goods and services -- and ultimately, you create value for everyone who touches the enterprise -- the customers, as well as investors. Indeed, like Apple, you might change the world.

Note to Gekko: Governance is Good

Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI | Posted 10.03.2011

Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI

Good governance that includes a system of checks and balances in corporations can assure that the rights and responsibilities of all are respected. Faith-based investors can hardly ignore these priorities and opportunities.

Could Egypt Become the World's Most Advanced Democracy?

Keith Harrington | Posted 08.12.2011

Keith Harrington

True democracy will fail to emerge in Egypt unless its people turn their attention to one critical factor that is going largely ignored amidst all the transitional hubbub -- the economy.

Who's Responsible for the Oil Spill in the Gulf...You? A Case for Socially Responsible Investing

Darron Stover | Posted 05.25.2011

Darron Stover

Do you know what's in your portfolio? Are you aware of and comfortable with the ethical standards employed by the companies you've invested in?

Country and Company: Part II - Aligning Goals

Ralph Gomory | Posted 05.25.2011

Ralph Gomory

Without balanced trade productive companies operating in the United States are open to continuing assault from foreign entities advantaged by their governments.

Creating Shared Value

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe | Posted 05.25.2011

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe

If you fail to work on behalf of the public interest and take shortcuts that place the public at risk, you also will fail your shareholders.

Country and Company: Part I - Divergent Goals

Ralph Gomory | Posted 05.25.2011

Ralph Gomory

While it is tempting to blame the succession of economic crises on greedy executives, sub-prime mortgage pushers and others of that ilk, it is in fact much more a system problem than a sudden widespread collapse of human nature.

Living and Dying American

Stephen Herrington | Posted 11.17.2011

Stephen Herrington

Back then a typical Republican was to the left of the Clintons. Nixon was a transition. It took Reagan to really define the world in which we now live, in which merit is no longer of value.

In Which I Come Face-to-Face with the American Investor

Fortune's Stanley Bing | Posted 05.25.2011

<i>Fortune</i>'s Stanley Bing

Is it possible, that at some time in the future, the welfare of the companies we serve could be divorced from the fear, the greed, the feral hysteria of the securities marketplace?

Leadership is More Than Profit

Margaret Blair and Ralph Gomory | Posted 05.25.2011

Margaret Blair and Ralph Gomory

In the rush to globalization, the United States has tossed aside a crucial principle that guided the economic prosperity of the twentieth century: co...

John McCain's New Populism?

Diane Francis | Posted 05.25.2011

Diane Francis

McCain can "pledge" to reform Wall Street business practices all he wants, but he hasn't walked the walk in the Senate in past years, nor has his party ever done so.