Company Men - by Sean Delehanty (Hardcover)

About the Book

"How an esoteric economic theory-and its most devout believers-changed the world forever. In the modern economy, share price is king. The value of a corporation is measured in how it enriches its shareholders, even when doing so subtracts from long-term growth or social good. Greed, in the last half-century of corporate practice, has become very good. Company Men is a sweeping intellectual history of how shareholder value-the shaping of American business practices around share price-rose from the backwater of academic theory to the vanguard of Wall Street corporate practice, then took root forever. Historian Sean Thomas Delehanty marshals archival resources to reveal how a group of motivated consultants and academic economists successfully branded shareholder value as the antidote to problems of management and economic stagnation in the 1970s. In their success, they created a class of well-heeled managers who executed shareholder-value theory as an everyday practice-and at the expense of most everything else. Delehanty's history of the modern American corporation is a sobering account of the business regime that would rule the world and produce no shortage of regrets. Company Men is intellectual history at its most vital and an essential origin story of our economy's discontents"--

Book Synopsis

How an esoteric economic theory--and its most devout believers--changed the world forever.

In the modern economy, stock price is king. The value of a corporation is measured in how it enriches its shareholders, even when doing so subtracts from long-term growth or social good. Greed, in the last half-century of corporate practice, has become very good. Company Men is a sweeping intellectual history of how shareholder value rose from the lesser-known edges of academic theory to the vanguard of corporate practice.

Historian Sean Delehanty marshals archival resources to reveal how a group of motivated consultants, activist investors, and academic economists successfully branded shareholder value as the antidote to problems of management and economic stagnation in the 1970s. In their success, they created a class of well-heeled managers who executed shareholder-value theory as an everyday practice--and at the expense of most everything else. Delehanty's history of the modern American corporation is a sobering account of the business regime that would rule the world and produce no shortage of regrets--even amongst those who championed it. Company Men is intellectual history at its most vital, offering a surprising origin story of our economy's discontents.

Review Quotes

"For the past generation, Americans have taken for granted that corporations exist to create shareholder value. Yet this idea is a radical departure from the past. Delehanty traces the rise of shareholder value from the conglomerate mergers of the 1960s to the bust-up takeovers of the 1980s and the pervasive spread of stock-based compensation. Through it all, he shows the powerful role played by the ideas and actions of economists--for better and worse."--Jerry Davis University of Michigan

"Richly researched and compellingly crafted, Company Men provides a much-needed history of the 'shareholder value revolution' that transformed American capitalism. Expertly navigating the complex world where economic theory and business practice meet, Delehanty explains how a community of managers, intellectuals, and lobbyists refashioned the fundamental ideology of corporate management. In so doing, Delehanty offers a profound new understanding of the origins of the bifurcated, unequal economy that we now accept as normal."--Benjamin C. Waterhouse University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

About the Author

Sean Delehanty is a historian of American political economy, including the history of capitalism in the United States in the twentieth century. He received a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the University of Rochester's Simon Business School. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.