MERITS OF CORPORATE PLURALIST OR STAKEHOLDER APPROACH IN NIGERIA

Abstract

A lot of people see a big corporation purely as an economic vehicle through which shareholders’ wealth will be hugely maximised and they have no qualms once this singular corporate objective is met no matter the extent of inconveniences or discomfort the other corporate stakeholders may suffer in the course of actualising this shareholder primacy agenda. They are comfortable even when the quest by these companies to maximise shareholders’ wealth becomes inordinate. In as much as no law is breached in the course of such a hot pursuit for shareholder wealth enhancement, they have no issues with that because, to them, a corporation is nothing else order than an economic entity which should and must play exclusively economic role just for their shareholders. These people, popularly referred to shareholder primacy advocates, appear to forget that a corporation is not an island, but a social entity also which affect and is affected by a lot of stakeholders. As such, it ought to play social roles also. This has therefore prompted us to embark on this research voyage to see whether there are some tangible benefits derivable from these big corporations playing but economic and social roles to not only their shareholders but also to the non-shareholding stakeholders. This we did by employing the doctrinal research methodology. The researchers observed that it is in the overall interests of the shareholders that the corporation, no matter the kind of corporate objective in place in the country concerned, should be integrative of and concerned with the protection and promotion of the interests of non-shareholding stakeholders as doing so will be beneficial to shareholders as it will most likely result in increase in the corporate profit available to them and will cause the company to be seen as a good, responsible and ethical corporate citizen with its attendant benefits.