Editing Shareholder value (section)

=== Anthropological criticisms ===

==== Under-emphasis of corporate entity ====
[[Peter Drucker]], author of "The Concept of the Corporation", makes the argument that shareholder value in fact serves to underplay the important social role which corporations occupy in contemporary society. Drucker states "In the social reality of today, shareholders are but one of several groups of people who stand in a special relationship to the corporation.  The corporation is permanent, the share-holder is transitory. It might even be said without much exaggeration that the corporation is really socially and politically a priori, whereas the share-holder's position is derivative and exists only in contemplation of law".<ref name="Ho, Karen Zouwen, 1971–2009">{{Cite book|last=Ho, Karen Zouwen, 1971– |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/310715693|title=Liquidated : an ethnography of Wall Street|date=2009|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-4580-0|location=Durham|oclc=310715693}}</ref> Drucker's argument is expanded upon by anthropologist [[Karen Ho]], who notes that in the immediate period following the second world war, the corporation existed primarily as a social institution which largely accepted its responsibilities to those involved in its operations outside of shareholders, concerning itself with the longevity and well-being of the corporation as an institution even if this meant undertaking actions that may run counter to the immediate concerns of the corporation's shareholders.<ref name="Ho, Karen Zouwen, 1971–2009"/> This post-war outlook is contrasted by the attitude adopted by management of modern-day corporations, which according to former WebTV CEO [[Randy Komisar]] see themselves not as institutional stewards but rather as investors themselves.<ref name="Ho, Karen Zouwen, 1971–2009"/> Critics such as Ho believe that the shift of management attitude towards treating corporations as investments has led to the decline of the corporation as a social entity, and allows corporate management to make decisions that may be against the interests of the corporation's social stakeholders or even longevity of the corporation itself.