Corporate chieftains prostitute themselves on the altar of shareholder value

Prostituting Yourself for Shareholders

Henry Mintzberg 2019 New Year's blog on corporate chieftains prostituting themselves on the altar of shareholder value
Shareholder Value: A way for corporate executives prostitute themselves

This is an interesting read on prostitution and shareholder value. I was directed to it by way of a LinkedIn post from Kenneth Mikkelson. The article is from the blog of Henry Mintzberg, a well-known scholar of management and organization. This blog, or TWOG as he calls it, briefly discusses the tie between shareholder value mantra and prostitution. As he sees it:

the term “Shareholder Value” in the article…has everything to do with maximizing personal wealth and nothing to do with enhancing human values.

Mintzberg blog, “Happy Birthday Fellow Prostitutes, January 3, 2019

Furthermore, Mintzberg provides several biting examples of prostitution:

A prostitute can be defined as anyone who sells a cherished resource indiscriminately. Thus, a poor woman who sells her body to feed a starving child is not a prostitute, whereas a rich celebrity who sells his reputation by endorsing a product he cares nothing about is a prostitute. And so too are the beneficiaries of Shareholder Value who have enabled pharmaceutical companies to set prices so that sick people die for want of medicines that could be affordable, and suitably profitable, likewise the university professors who take research grants from such companies to do their bidding. Prostitution is running rampant in this world of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Mintzberg blog, “Happy Birthday Fellow Prostitutes, January 3, 2019

I’m not sure if Mintzberg is referring to Martin Shkreli, to Heather Bresch of the EpiPen price controversy or to the pharmaceutical companies selling opioids, but all of these people (remember, corporations are people too) have prostituted themselves in order to engorge themselves and their shareholders in wealth. He even calls out Jack Welch who has made his reputation on the shareholder value (and later called it the “dumbest idea in the world” – but only after we nearly fell off the cliff in 2008 and ran deep into the Great Recession).

Yes, more and more people are decrying the selfish values inherent in shareholder mantra and are calling out for something that uplifts businesses and society.

Mintzberg closes his TWOG with

it’s time for action. How about making 2019 the year that we throw off the yoke of Shareholder Value, for the sake of human values?

Mintzberg blog, “Happy Birthday Fellow Prostitutes, January 3, 2019

Are you in?

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