2004: Negotiated Shareholder Value: The German Version of an Anglo-American Practice

ABSTRACT In comparative political economy it has become commonplace to distinguish between two types of corporate governance systems. In shareholder systems, influence over company management is concentrated with institutional investors holding small percentages of companies ’ shares. In stakeholder systems, influence is shared between large shareholders, employees, the community and suppliers and customers. This paper contributes to the literature addressing recent changes in the German variant of the stake-holder system by proposing a few new concepts. On the level of institutions, it is argued that the stakeholder system is not being replaced by a shareholder system in Germany. Rather, an augmented stakeholder system is emerging through the inclusion of insti-tutional investors in the old stakeholder coalition of interests. On the level of practice, it is argued that negotiated shareholder value is being adopted in Germany. This German variant of shareholder value is distinct from Anglo-American practice because major changes implementing shareholder value must be negotiated within the augmented stake-holder coalition. As a result, performance incentives for employees tend to be less strong than is the case in the USA and UK