Shareholders and stakeholders around the world: the role of values, culture, and law in directors’ decisions

  • We present evidence on the way personal and institutional factors could together guide public company directors in decision-making concerning shareholders and stakeholders. In a sample comprising more than nine hundred directors originating from over fifty countries and serving in firms from twenty three countries, we confirm that directors around the world hold a principled, quasi-ideological stance towards shareholders and stakeholders, called shareholderism, on which they vary in line with their personal values. We theorize and find that in addition to personal values, directors’ shareholderism level associates with cultural norms that are conducive to entrepreneurship. Among legal factors, only creditor protection exhibits a negative correlation with shareholderism, while general legal origin and proxies for shareholder and employee protection are unrelated to it.

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Author:Amir N. Licht, Renee B. Adams
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-616537
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3766934
Parent Title (English):LawFin working paper ; No. 13
Series (Serial Number):LawFin Working Paper (13)
Publisher:Center for Advanced Studies on the Foundations of Law and Finance, House of Finance, Goethe University
Place of publication:Frankfurt am Main
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:2020
Year of first Publication:2020
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2021/09/09
Tag:CSR; ESG; corporate governance; culture; directors; entrepreneurship; institutions; law; shareholderism; social norms; stakeholders; values
Issue:This version: 5 November 2020
Page Number:43
Institutes:Rechtswissenschaft / Rechtswissenschaft
Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / House of Finance (HoF)
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS)
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE)
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / DFG-Forschergruppen / Foundation of Law and Finance
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
3 Sozialwissenschaften / 34 Recht / 340 Recht
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht