A company's shareholder is still the stakeholder that rules them all

IT is all well and good that the fashionable corporate trend these days is to proclaim, as the US-based Business Roundtable did earlier this month, that companies should strive to serve their various stakeholders beyond just shareholders.

But while it is important that businesses consider the full scope of their value and risks in the universe, trying to downplay the shareholder can obscure the fact that the owner of a business is ultimately the most important stakeholder of all.

The Business Roundtable, a group of top chief executives, recently changed its definition of the purpose of a corporation. The purpose statement, which used to declare that the duty of management and boards was to the shareholders above all else, now espouses a more holistic view of stakeholders that elevates customers, employees, suppliers and communities to the same level as shareholders.