Shareholder survival is driving corporate
decision-making, says Andrew Kakabadse
As global markets stagnate, shareholders are panicking and UK
business leaders are being pressured into making damaging decisions
due to their inability to realise desired returns on
investment.
Our research into the challenges faced by corporations across
Europe shows that the UK could learn much from Germany's
economy, which thrives on the development of small to medium-sized
enterprises and family businesses.
Most company bosses are reasonable people with immense
responsibility in a mature and unresponsive market. But
shareholders, particularly those representing pension trusts,
demand high returns, which create an interlocking 'circle of
need' to get as much out of the market and then exit as quickly
as possible. This is because pension funds, for example, have to
pay their own members.
