Overview
Main description
Now is the time to redirect your focus from short-term gain to long-term growth
In 2005, the man who coined the term "shareholder value" wrote a groundbreaking and heavily discussed article in the Harvard Business Review. Called “10 Ways to Create Shareholder Value,” Alfred Rappaport outlined a simple but profound thesis: Sacrificing future growth to meet quarterly earnings benchmarks is the road to corporate and investment ruin.
Sure enough, a global financial crisis occurred, which Rappaport blames on executives who chased higher stock prices with stock options. Ditto for money managers chasing quarterly performance numbers.
In Ten Ways To Build Long-Term Shareholder Value, Rappaport examines the causes and consequences of “short-termism” and offers specific recommendations for redirecting incentives and accounting practices.
Whether you're a corporate manager, public policymaker, business-school student, or simply concerned about your financial future, Ten Ways to Build Long-Term Shareholder Value provides valuable insight and actionable tips to change the course of your company—and contribute to an overall healthy economy that benefits all.
Author comments
Alfred Rappaport is the Leonard Spacek Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He is the author of the pioneering book Creating Shareholder Value and coauthor of Expectations Investing. Rappaport has been a guest columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and BusinessWeek. He created and designed The Wall Street Journal Shareholder Scoreboard, an annual ranking by total shareholder returns of the 1,000 most valuable U.S. corporations, published annually from 1995 to 2008.
