Stakeholders and Shareholders Debate

What is ethically responsible management? How can a corporation, given its economic mission, be managed with appropriate attention to ethical concerns? These are central questions in the field of business ethics. There are two approaches to answering such questions. The first one is Milton Friedman’s shareholder theory of management and the second one is Edwards Freeman’s “Stakeholder” theory of management, two different views about the purpose and aims of a business.

Wells Fargo is one of the well-recognized banks in the United States with over 8,000 banks. Last year Wells Fargo paid millions of dollars in fines for opening around 1.5 million bank accounts and applied for around 560,000 credit cards without customers’ consent. Due to this unethical and illegal event, numerous stakeholders were affected. In the article, The Wal-Mart Effect and Business, Ethics, and Society by R. Edward Friedman, Friedman states that stakeholder is anyone who can be affected by the business or can affect the business (Friedman 38). A great deal stakeholders were affected by the Wells Fargo crisis including Board of Directors, stockholders, employees, and the customers. Each stakeholder has different interests,

Stakeholder theory looks at the relationships between an organization and others in its internal and external environment. It also looks at how these relationships affect how the organization conducts its activities. You can think of a stakeholder as a person or organization that can affect or be affected by your organization. Stakeholders can come from inside or outside of the

The stakeholder theory made popular by Ed Freeman (1984) does seem to represent a major advance over the classical view (Freeman, 1984). It might seem inappropriate to refer to the stakeholder position as neoclassical. Bowie (1991: 56-66) has defined stakeholders as a group whose existence was necessary for the survival of the firm--stockholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, and managers themselves.

In their theories of how a business should operate, R. Edward Freeman and Milton Friedman hold virtually opposite beliefs as to what businesses’ responsibilities should be. In favor of the Stakeholder theory, Freeman believes that any person or organization that has a “stake” in the business should also play a role of participation in the business’s actions and decisions. In the other corner of the ring stands Milton Friedman, who holds the belief that said business is only responsible for those that actually own stock in the business – the owners, or stockholders.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Sarbanes-Oxley, Bemoaned as a Burden, Is an Investor’s Ally, by Gretchen Morgenson, is about some challenging the requirements that were put in place and the cost to the company’s. According to Morgenson, Tom Farley is one that is an outspoken critic of the law requiring outside auditor to attest on the management’s internal controls on the financial statements. He attributes the decline in corporations in the Unites States.

The stakeholders are the shareholders, managers, and employees. The current situation has caused a dilemma that affects all stakeholders equally. When the business is at risk, everyone involved should be concerned about the future of the organization. However, the responsibility falls to the senior leaders of the organization to solve the current issues. However, holding 80% of the company’s stocks is concerned not only about the organizations current issues but also with the value of his investment, as he gets closer to retirement. This creates an ethical dilemma due to his personal finances and retirement being directly affected by the company’s performance. In addition, the CEO believes that the status of the organization is not as bad as some of the senior leadership team would say. The shareholders interest is purely profit. The impact of how Huffman Trucking runs the business and implements change has a direct reflection on the company’s image.

In the Enron case, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Congress conducted an investigation into Enron's collapse. The authorities re-examined the roles of corporate watchdogs, including corporate boards of directors, auditors, investment banks, credit rating agencies and lawyers. It could be that the watchdogs had too tight relations with the company's executives. That is why no one questioned the Enron's aggressive accounting strategies. To prevent such collapses, someone needs to look into the possible conflict of interest. The dilemma is that auditors should perform in the interests of the investors, but they are paid by the audited company, which makes it more difficult for them to exercise tough decisions. The auditors should not perform some particular consulting services for the firms that they audit. Another belief is that there should be more severe consequences for those committing financial crimes and causing fall of the companies.

A stakeholder is someone who someone who benefits or is burdened by a corporation, or someone who the corporation benefits or is burdened by. (Steiner). Stakeholders are represented by two main groups; primary and secondary

In general ,the stakeholder approach may be more conducive to balancing a wide variety of corporate interests and thereby discouraging impropriety.Executives and boards should take the perceptions of both shareholders and stakeholders into account when formulating strategy and enunciate their stance in all organizational communications. Only within that kind of clearly delineated context, can managers be expected to make appropriate decisions. Indeed, some of the most successful businesses are those which have embraced stakeholder values for example Bodyshop. However, we see that generally, shareholder value

The company’s stakeholders include primary groups of customers, employees, shareholders, owners, suppliers, etc. and secondary groups of community. All stakeholders have their own self-interests. While employees want secure jobs with high earnings; customers want quality products with cheap prices, which may eventually result in the company and employees’ low income. Being said that, the corporation owes all stakeholders the obligations to meet their interests. That brings in the ethical issue of conflicts of interest, one of key problems at Enron. CFO Andrew Fastow created financial partnership to hide Enron debt, from which he allegedly collected $30 million in management fees. The action obviously made Enron financial data look good, but at the same time deceived the company’s investors about the real performance. Many investors may make their investing decisions based on those false data. And that’s when the collapse begins.

This paper will have a detailed discussion on the shareholder theory of Milton Friedman and the stakeholder theory of Edward Freeman. Friedman argued that “neo-classical economic theory suggests that the purpose of the organisations is to make profits in their accountability to themselves and their shareholders and that only by doing so can business contribute to wealth for itself and society at large”. On the other hand, the theory of stakeholder suggests that the managers of an organisation do not only have the duty towards the firm’s shareholders; rather towards the individuals and constituencies who contribute to the company’s wealth, capacity and activities. These individuals or constituencies can be the shareholders, employees,

A company is made up of stocks. The company then sells its stocks to people who are willing to buy it. A shareholder of a business is someone who owns part of the company. They own a stock of the company and in turn then they are somewhat in charge of that company and are invested in it. The old business motto is that a company must keep its shareholders happy and wealthy in order for a business to succeed. A shareholders investment needs to be maximized so they get the most value out of it. Since they are technically part owners of the company they need to be kept pleased. A shareholders return on investment is measured by the stock price of the company. Since the stock prices rises and fall every day the investment is always changing and the company is always trying to maximize it every day. Lynn Stout challenges this old motto in “The Shareholder Value Myth”. She challenges every part of this old motto and in fact she calls it a myth. In “The Shareholder Value Myth” Stout breaks down why the old way of doing things is not correct and she gives a

These are people and companies that may have an interest in what goes on with known businesses or companies. Stakeholder’s main interests are profit growth and dividends because their goal is to get a return on the money they invested.

Widely known as the champion of the energy industry, Enron is suddenly faced with a corporate crisis in the form of a scandal. This scandal involves not only Enron’s accounting practices but also its corporate governance and culture (Lawrence & Weber, 2008). This report will recommend some potential strategies for Enron to move forward from the scandal. To do this, we must incorporate stakeholder theory, which “argues that corporations serve a broad public purpose; to create value for society” (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p 6.). This means that Enron must take responsibility for the scandal it created and take actions to regain its stakeholders’ confidence. To accomplish this, we will first identify and analyze Enron’s primary