Corporations Partnerships Proprietorships
The stockholders-of large corporations, through their elected board of directors, usually hire managers managers operate the firm efficiently and satisfy customers? Offering consumers value at a low cost is the ticket to profitability. In an owner-managed firm, the owner’s property right to the residual income provides a strong incentive both to reduce costs and to please consumers. This is not necessarily so for the managers of a corporation.
For a large corporation with many stockholders – millions in some cases – the situation is complex. Stockholders own the residual income (profits), but professional managers operate the firm. Stockholders want managers to cut costs while increasing output and revenues, but managers might want high salaries for themselves, large offices, first- class travel, and other expensive perks. They might also prefer the power and prestige associated with expanding the business (by taking over another firm, perhaps), even if it might reduce profitability. Can the stockholders control the actions of managers and direct them toward the pursuit of profitability? Direct control by many stockholders is unlikely. Few of them own enough shares to give them the incentive or information they would need to exercise direct control. Most find it too expensive even to attend the annual shareholders’ meeting, much less to monitor managers closely. Instead, stockholders elect a board of directors, which in turn appoints the company’s high-level managers. As the following series of posts describes, however, not all is lost when stockholders don’t directly run the company themselves. Internal corporate policies and competition for control of the firm by outsiders help mitigate principal-agent problems when managers run the company instead.
Tags: Corporations, Partnerships, payday loans, Proprietorships, stockholders, stocks