Shareholder value in an adverse environment: the German case

Cui Bono, Benefit Corporation? An Experiment Inspired by Social Enterprise Legislation in Germany and the US

“…While their exact designs di er from state to state, their common idea is that A director of a bene t corporation has a duty to consider the e ects of any action 2 or inaction upon the stakeholders of the bene t corporation. 3 The new form of social enterprise thus invokes a terminology that has long been a bone of contention among corporate law scholars internationally: While US American scholarship had celebrated shareholder value as the end of history for corporate law (Hansmann and Kraakman 2001) with few notable exceptions (Blair and Stout 1999;Green eld 2005), continental European systems like Germany traditionally put more emphasis on other corporate stakeholders such as employees and creditors, and even outside constituencies like the general public (Jürgens et al 2000;Fiss and Zajac 2004).…”

Employing neo-Durkheimian institutional theory in cross-cultural accounting research

“…The fusion of the three cultures in Germany implies the hierarchists, enclaves and individualists would all have the opportunity to give voice to their beliefs and opinions, and it is apparent this is the case if we return to the study of Jürgens et al (2000). Jürgens et al (2000) state that in the media debates concerning shareholder value in Germany during the 1990s a limited number of positions can be identified: (i) those who consider a shareholder value orientation as potentially harmful because of an implied short-termism, (ii) those who are critical of a shareholder value orientation because of its associations with unemployment and being to the detriment of social relationships within firms, (iii) those who perceive a In recent times, however, there is evidence that financialization in Germany is advancing, albeit in specific ways that reflect the unique cultural dialogues and indicate that cultural dialogues are always ongoing.…”

“…Jürgens et al (2000) provide an early account of financialization from the German perspective in which they maintain that by the end of the 1990s there had been only a limited move towards a shareholder value orientation in Germany, and that this move only began to occur in the mid1990s. That there has been some movement towards financialization since the mid-1990s is indicated by a modest rise in institutional share ownership, concentrated on a very narrow group of German companies including Daimler-Benz, Hoechst, MAN, and Preussag [3].…”

“…Additionally, they suggest that because of bank domination of the German corporate governance system [4] and [5]. Deeg (2009) has sought to determine whether non-financial European companies have financialized by considering a different set of factors to Jürgens et al (2000). Deeg asserts that a financialized company is one which has a focus on shareholder value, a preference for market finance and is listed on a stock exchange.…”

Financialization and Information Technology: A Multi-paradigmatic View of IT and Finance – Part II

“…Several case studies have underlined that this increased focus on short-term financial profitability has been detrimental to real investment in different national contexts (Lazonick andO'Sullivan, 2000, Froud et al, 2000;Jürgens et al, 2000;Morin, 2000;Williams, 2000). For instance, a study published by Reuters (2015) indicates that the dividends and buyback to net income ratio has increased steadily over recent years, reaching 116% in 2015 in a sample of 3297 publicly traded, non-financial, US corporations.…”