IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/indrel/qt4r16k6j6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shareholder Value and the Transformation of American Industries, 1984-2001

Author

Listed:
  • Fligstein, Neil
  • Shin, Taek-Jin

Abstract

There is now a solid set of results from economic sociologists concerning the spread and implementation of "shareholder value" strategies across publicly held corporations in the United States during the 1980s. Corporations were financially reorganized and used the tactics of selling off unrelated product lines, engaging in mergers with firms in similar industries, various financial ploys such as stock buybacks, and downsizing their labor forces. Using data from 62 industries for 1984-2000, this paper explores empirically the connections between shareholder value strategies such as mergers and layoffs, and related industry-level changes such as de-unionization, computer technology, and subsequent profitability. Mergers occurred in industries where economic conditions were not good in line with shareholder value arguments. Mergers subsequently led to layoffs, consistent with the shareholder value perspective that emphasizes that firms needed to deploy their resources more efficiently as they reorganized. There is also evidence that managers who engaged in mergers invested in computer technology. This technology displaced workers through layoffs and was focused on reducing unionized work forces. There is no evidence that mergers or layoffs returned industries to profitability. This suggests that shareholder value strategies were not, successful in righting the problems of American business.

Suggested Citation

  • Fligstein, Neil & Shin, Taek-Jin, 2007. "Shareholder Value and the Transformation of American Industries, 1984-2001," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt4r16k6j6, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt4r16k6j6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4r16k6j6.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jensen, Michael C. & Ruback, Richard S., 1983. "The market for corporate control : The scientific evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-4), pages 5-50, April.
    2. Scherer, F M, 1988. "Corporate Takeovers: The Efficiency Arguments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 69-82, Winter.
    3. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2001. "How To Compete: The Impact Of Workplace Practices And Information Technology On Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 434-445, August.
    4. Whitley, Richard, 1986. "The transformation of business finance into financial economics: The roles of academic expansion and changes in U.S. capital markets," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 171-192, March.
    5. Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "Breach of Trust in Hostile Takeovers," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 33-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    7. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 339-376.
    8. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999. "Corporate Ownership Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, April.
    9. Edward N. Wolff, 2002. "Computerization and Structural Change," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(1), pages 59-75, March.
    10. Hammer, Michael & Champy, James, 1993. "Reengineering the corporation: A manifesto for business revolution," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 90-91.
    11. David Card & John E. DiNardo, 2002. "Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 733-783, October.
    12. Medoff, James L, 1979. "Layoffs and Alternatives under Trade Unions in U.S. Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 380-395, June.
    13. Maryellen R. Kelley, 1994. "Productivity and Information Technology: The Elusive Connection," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(11), pages 1406-1425, November.
    14. Caves, Richard E., 1989. "Mergers, takeovers, and economic efficiency : Foresight vs. hindsight," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 151-174, March.
    15. Blackwell, David W. & Marr, M. Wayne & Spivey, Michael F., 1990. "Plant-closing decisions and the market value of the firm," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 277-288, August.
    16. Liebeskind, Julia Porter & Opler, Tim C & Hatfield, Donald E, 1996. "Corporate Restructuring and the Consolidation of US Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 53-68, March.
    17. Gregor Andrade & Mark Mitchell & Erik Stafford, 2001. "New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 103-120, Spring.
    18. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1985. "Corporate Capital Structures in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie85-1.
    19. Peter Cappelli, 2000. "Examining the Incidence of Downsizing and Its Effect on Establishment Performance," NBER Working Papers 7742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2002. "Upstairs, Downstairs: Computers and Skills on Two Floors of a Large Bank," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(3), pages 432-447, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ken-Hou Lin, 2016. "The Rise of Finance and Firm Employment Dynamics," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 972-988, August.
    2. Allen Hyde, 2018. "“Left behind?” Financialization and Income Inequality Between the Affluent, Middle Class, and the Poor," LIS Working papers 745, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Froud, Julie & Johal, Sukhdev & Leaver, Adam & Williams, Karel, 2014. "Financialization across the Pacific: Manufacturing cost ratios, supply chains and power," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 46-57.
    4. Marion Fourcade & Etienne Ollion & Yann Algan, 2015. "The Superiority of Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 89-114, Winter.
    5. Matthew J. Bidwell, 2013. "What Happened to Long-Term Employment? The Role of Worker Power and Environmental Turbulence in Explaining Declines in Worker Tenure," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1061-1082, August.
    6. Crouch, Colin, 2019. "Inequality in post-industrial societies," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 11-23.
    7. Margarita Carvalho & João Cerejeira, 2019. "Financialization, Corporate Governance and Employee Pay: A Firm Level Analysis," NIPE Working Papers 08/2019, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    8. Sparsam, Jan, 2016. "Understanding the 'Economic' in New Economic Sociology," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 18(1), pages 6-17.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fligstein, Neil & Shin, Taek-Jin, 2005. "Shareholder Value and Changes in American Industries, 1984-2000," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt82j7915n, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    2. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2008. "One Share - One Vote: the Theory," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49.
    3. Dostie Benoit & Jayaraman Rajshri, 2012. "Organizational Redesign, Information Technologies and Workplace Productivity," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, February.
    4. Zand, Fardad & Van Beers, Cees & Van Leeuwen, George, 2011. "Information technology, organizational change and firm productivity: A panel study of complementarity effects and clustering patterns in Manufacturing and Services," MPRA Paper 46469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Spitz, Alexandra & Bertschek, Irene, 2003. "IT, Organizational Change and Wages," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-69, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Bertschek Irene & Meyer Jenny, 2009. "Do Older Workers Lower IT-Enabled Productivity?: Firm-Level Evidence from Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 229(2-3), pages 327-342, April.
    7. Riccardo Leoni, 2013. "Organization of work practices and productivity: an assessment of research on world- class manufacturing," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Jones, Derek C. & Kalmi, Panu & Kauhanen, Antti, 2011. "Firm and employee effects of an enterprise information system: Micro-econometric evidence," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 159-168, April.
    9. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    10. Gu, Wulong Gera, Surendra, 2004. "The Effect of Organizational Innovation and Information Technology on Firm Performance," The Canadian Economy in Transition 2004007e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    11. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2018. "Trust-based work time and the productivity effects of mobile information technologies in the workplace," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-013, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2015. "Mobile information and communication technologies, flexible work organization and labor productivity: Firm-level evidence," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-087, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Nenova, Tatiana, 2006. "Takeover laws and financial development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4029, The World Bank.
    15. Riccardo Leoni, 2012. "Workplace Design, Complementarities among Work Practices, and the Formation of Key Competencies: Evidence from Italian Employees," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(2), pages 316-349, April.
    16. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2020. "Mobile Information Technologies and Firm Performance: The Role of Employee Autonomy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    17. Kathryn Shaw, 2004. "The Human Resources Revolution: Is It a Productivity Driver?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 4, pages 69-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Surendra Gera & Wulong Gu, 2004. "The Effect of Organizational Innovation and Information and Communications Technology on Firm Performance," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 9, pages 37-51, Fall.
    19. Henrik Cronqvist & Fredrik Heyman & Mattias Nilsson & Helena Svaleryd & Jonas Vlachos, 2009. "Do Entrenched Managers Pay Their Workers More?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 309-339, February.
    20. Bronwyn H. Hall & Francesca Lotti & Jacques Mairesse, 2013. "Evidence on the impact of R&D and ICT investments on innovation and productivity in Italian firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 300-328, April.

    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:cdl:indrel:qt4r16k6j6. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irucbus.html .

    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.