Shareholder Primacy and the Trajectory of UK Corporate Governance

John Armour, Simon Deakin and Suzanne J. Konzelmann

Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract: Core institutions of UK corporate governance, in particular those relating to takeovers, board structure and directors’ duties, are strongly orientated towards a norm of shareholder primacy. Beyond the core, in particular at the intersection of insolvency and employment law, stakeholder interests are better represented, thanks to European Community influence. Moreover, institutional shareholders are redirecting their investment strategies away from a focus on short-term returns, in such a way as to favour stakeholder-inclusive practices. We therefore suggest that the UK system is currently in a state of flux and that the debate over shareholder primacy has not been concluded.

Keywords: corporate governance; stakeholding; hostile takeovers; company law; insolvency; employee representation; shareholder activism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 G32 G33 G34 K22 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn and nep-law
Note: PRO-2
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cbrwp266.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp266

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ruth Newman ().