Shareholders and Business Ethics

Benz, M. & Frey, B. S. 2007. Corporate governance: What can we learn from public governance? Academy of Management Review, 32(1): 92-104.
The paper discusses four specific areas in which corporate governance can learn from public governance.

Berkowitz, A.L. 2002. 'Enron : a professional's guide to the events, ethical issues, and proposed reforms'. CCH Inc.: Chicago.
This book ‘explains the collision of forces that led to the debacle; it illuminates the deeper issues underlying the scandal; and it analyzes the regulatory reforms that have been proposed.’

Carson, T.L. 2003. Self–Interest and Business Ethics: Some Lessons of the Recent Corporate Scandals. Journal of Business Ethics, 43(4): 389-394.
This article looks at the impact corporate scandals such as Enron and Worldcom have had on business ethics literature and stakeholder theory in particular.

Cassimon, D. 2001. Financing sustainable development using a feasible Tobin Tax. Journal of International Relation and Development, 4(2): 157-173.
This article discusses the impact of currency trading on sustainable development and provides a proposal for a Tobin Currency Transaction Tax.

Chan, A.W. and Cheung, H.Y., 2012. Cultural dimensions, ethical sensitivity, and corporate governance. Journal of Business Ethics, 110(1), pp.45-59.
This research analyses the difference in corporate governance practices across different countries, drawing on the notion of ethical sensitivity.

Clarke, T. 2005. Accounting for Enron: shareholder value and stakeholder interests. Corporate Governance, 13(5): 598.
This paper uses Enron to show how corporations have become disconnected from their morals and from wider stakeholder interests through the ‘relentless emphasis on the importance of shareholder value’.

Coffee, J.C. 2011. The Political Economy of Dodd-Frank: Why Financial Reform Tends to be Frustrated and Systemic Risk Perpetuated. Cornell Law Review. 97(5): 1019-1082.
Comprehensive article that examines bounded rationality, regulatory capture, weak state resources and firm expertise as reasons for weakness in regulation of the financial sector.

De Jong, E. and Semenov, R. 2006. Cultural determinants of ownership concentration across countries. International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2(1,2): 145.
Shows the different types of corporate ownership that are predominant in different countries and links this to cultural characteristics.

Denes, M., Karpoff, J., & McWilliams, V. 2015. Thirty years of shareholder activism: a survey of empirical research. SSRN, 2608085: 1-43.
Survey study that ponders whether activist shareholders need to take greater ownership positions to really help drive value.

Donaldson, T. 2007. "Ethical blowback": The missing piece in the corporate governance puzzle - the risks to a company which fails to understand and respect its social contract. Corporate Governance, 7(4): 534-541.
Author discusses the risks for companies that fail to understand and respect their social contract. He defines ethical blowback and identifies two forces influencing governance reform that can provoke blowback.

Gantchev, N. 2013. The costs of shareholder activism: Evidence from a sequential decision model. Journal of Financial Economics, 107(3):610-631.
Empirical study that suggests that activist shareholders on aggregate do not drive value, but also that when considering the top performers this may not be the case.

Goodman, J. and Arenas, D., 2015. Engaging ethically: A discourse ethics perspective on social shareholder engagement. Business Ethics Quarterly, 25(2), pp.163-189.
This article seeks, in response to ethical concerns about the legitimacy of social shareholder engagement, to use discourse ethics to normatively analyse social shareholder engagement.

Hellsten, S. and Mallin, C. 2006. Are 'Ethical' or 'Socially Responsible' Investments
Socially Responsible? Journal of Business Ethics, 66(4): 393.
This paper discusses ‘whether ethical investments really succeed in reducing the conflict between profit-making and social responsibility as they promise or whether they use commercial rhetoric and market mechanism to merely sell us our own perceived values back.’

Hillman, A. J. & Keim, G. D. 2001. Shareholder value, stockholder management, and social issues: What's the bottom line? Strategic Management Journal, 22(2): 125-139.
The authors test the relationship between shareholder value, stakeholder management and engagement in social issues using data from S&P 500 firms.

Koslowski, P. 2000. The limits of shareholder value. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(1/2): 137-148.
This article examines the theoretical justification that increasing shareholder value is the purpose of corporate governance.

Lee, I.B. 2006. Efficiency and Ethics in the Debate about Shareholder Primacy. Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, 31(2): 533.
This paper looks at the morality of the debate behind shareholder primacy, arguing that the two existing arguments against shareholder primacy are insufficient but provides two new arguments against shareholders as the only group of importance to the corporation.

Oh, C.H., Park, J.H. and Ghauri, P.N., 2013. Doing right, investing right: Socially responsible investing and shareholder activism in the financial sector. Business Horizons, 56(6), pp.703-714.
This article provides an overview of CSR in the financial sector, focusing on socially responsible investment and shareholder activism.

Patelli, L. and Pedrini, M., 2014. Is the optimism in CEO’s letters to shareholders sincere? Impression management versus communicative action during the economic crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), pp.19-34.
This study seeks to explore the sincerity in rhetoric in annual letters to shareholders through studying firm performance and rhetorical features of CEO letters in the wake of the global economic crisis.

Rossouw, G. J. 2005. Business ethics and corporate governance: A global survey. Business & Society, 44(1): 32-39.
This is the introduction to a special forum, presenting research on the relationship between business ethics and corporate governance globally (world divided into six regions).

Ryan, L.V., Buchholtz, A.K. and Kolb, R.W., 2010. New directions in corporate governance and finance: Implications for business ethics research. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(4), pp.673-694.
This paper discusses the implications for business ethics of alterations in the landscape of corporate governance and finance.

Sayles, L. and Smith, C. 2006. 'The Rise of the Rogue Executive: How Good Companies Go Bad and How To Stop the Destruction'. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.
‘This book reveals the true breadth and depth of corporate corruption -- including flagrant new cases that haven't received the publicity they deserve.’

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