The Shareholder Value Approach. Criticism using the Example of the Corona Crisis

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Controlling, grade: 1,3, The FOM University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, course: Value-Based Controlling & Intern. Accounting, language: English, abstract: Due to the COVID 19 pandemic many companies have faced and still face countless challenges. Strategies must be adjusted, and costs must be reduced due to the lack of sales to avoid possible company crises. But how rigorous should profit-oriented management be when the world has been caught off guard by an unprecedented pandemic? Is it possible to combine considerate and entrepreneurial action and how can the interests of all concerned be reconciled?

This paper aims to answer and guide these questions. The course of the crisis, the economic consequences and the political measures taken in Germany are discussed. The methodology makes use of current sources and evaluations and sheds light on the shareholder value approach from a historical perspective. It critically examines the application of the concept to the extent of the Corona crisis.

Some 23.53 million people were confirmed as infected and about 810,00 deaths were reported worldwide. The COVID 19 pandemic is changing life as known until the start of 2020 at a drastic pace. The course and the effects herald the economic crisis in 2020.

On Wall Street, the biggest slump in stock prices since 1987 was reported. Other indices around the world also lost heavily because economic life in many countries had largely come to a stand-still. For 2020, the Federal Government expects the gross domestic product to decline by 6.3 per cent. The reasons for this are well known. The drastic restrictions make it impossible to continue to operate as usual. This means that there will not be a full recovery in 2021 either.