IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buetqu/v17y2007i03p497-513_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Maximization, Incomparability, and Managerial Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Hsieh, Nien-hê

Abstract

According to one prominent view of rationality, for the choice of alternative to be justified, it must be at least as good as other alternatives. Michael Jensen has recently invoked this view to argue that managers should act exclusively to maximize the long-run market value of economic enterprises. According to Jensen, alternative accounts of managerial responsibility, such as stakeholder theory, are to be rejected because they lack a single measure to compare alternatives as better or worse. Against Jensen's account, this paper argues that choosing the alternative that is at least as good as other alternatives need not preclude managers from respecting considerations in addition to long-run market value. The paper argues that such considerations may be incorporated into managerial decision-making by introducing constraints and priorities into the process of maximizing long-run market value and by allowing for “clumpy” values.

Suggested Citation

  • Hsieh, Nien-hê, 2007. "Maximization, Incomparability, and Managerial Choice," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 497-513, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:17:y:2007:i:03:p:497-513_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1052150X00002529/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Neville & Simon Bell & Gregory Whitwell, 2011. "Stakeholder Salience Revisited: Refining, Redefining, and Refueling an Underdeveloped Conceptual Tool," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 357-378, September.
    2. Bastiaan Linden & Andrew C. Wicks & R. Edward Freeman, 2024. "How to Assess Multiple-Value Accounting Narratives from a Value Pluralist Perspective? Some Metaethical Criteria," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(2), pages 243-259, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:17:y:2007:i:03:p:497-513_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/beq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.