Shareholder value and Financialization: consultancy promises, management moves

2000/01/01 by Julie Froud, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal +1 · 8 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism

paper · doi:10.1080/030851400360578

openalex publication_date 2000/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

In the pages of the daily financial press, 'shareholder value' is a loose rhetoric. For business consultants who sell financial metrics and implementation, shareholder value is also a product and a promise that purposive management action will be rewarded. This paper begins by considering the consultant's promise and the more guarded academic responses. It then presents empirics on micro performance and the meso limits to shareholder value and argues that most corporate managements cannot easily deliver what consultants promise and the capital markets demand. The paper ends by taking a broader view of value-based management as part of a process of financialization. If the results are contradictory and disappointing, a persistent gap between expectations and outcomes can nevertheless drive management behaviours, which change the world.

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