Shareholders and Stakeholders

Joanne F Sonin is a finance professional with a PhD from London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

1. Introduction
The Post-War Era
Thematic Outline
Structural Outline

2. Nationalisations and the Post-War Shareholder
The Post-War Consensus
Support for Radical Reform or Cyclical Change?
Nationalisations and the Four Levers of the British Economy
Nationalisations and Equity Shareholders
Reactions to Post-War Nationalisations
Financial and Economic Implications of Nationalisations
Nationalisation’s Impact on the Relationship between Shareholders and Directors
Institutional Investors and Nationalisations
The Faltering Post-War Consensus and State Interventions
The Financial Crash, Equity Shareholders, and Nationalisations
Britain’s Pivot to Thatcherism

3. The Post-War Shareholder Body and Shareholder Democracy
Post-War Perceptions of the Shareholder
Types of Shareholders
The Evolution of the Forms of Shareholding
The Development of Shareholder Democracy

4. Corporate Purpose and the Shareholder
Shareholder Primacy and Shareholder Democracy
Enlightened Shareholder Value
Conflicting Interests and the Call for Reform
The UK Courts
Pressures on the Principle of Shareholder Primacy

5. Industrial Democracy and the Worker Shareholder
Post-War Reconstruction and the Movement for Industrial Democracy
Motivations for Support of Industrial Democracy
British Industry and a Changing Workforce
Impediments to Widespread Worker Shareholding
Workers’ Attitudes to Savings and Equity Ownership
Worker Uptake

6. Industrial Democracy and the Worker Director
The Trade Unions and Worker Representation
Capital and Labour: Conflict or Convergence?
Industrial Democracy and Legislative Change
The Unrealised Potential of Post-War Industrial Democracy

7. The Bullock Committee: A Paper-Tiger Attack on the System
Establishing the Committee of Enquiry
The TUC, the Majority Report and the Minority Report
Bullock Report and Shareholder Primacy
(Re)defining Directors’ Duties
Political Resistance to the TUC Proposals and the Bullock Report
The City and Industry
The End of the Post-War Consensus and the Diminishing of Industrial Democracy

8. Post-1979: Shareholders, Stakeholders and the Companies Act
The End of the Post-War Consensus
1979: The End of the Post-War Settlement and the Election of Margaret Thatcher
Companies Act 1980
Companies Act 1985
Thatcher’s Big Bang and the Financial Services Act 1986
New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ and the Companies Act
The Company Law Review Steering Committee
Shareholders, Stakeholders and UK Corporate Governance
The Company Law Reform Bill and the Companies Act 2006

9. Contemporary Corollaries and Concluding Considerations
Contemporary Relevance
Corporate Purpose: A Note on Contemporary Parallels
Concluding Thoughts