Abstract
During the last decade, there has been a wave of mergers and hostile takeovers throughout the corporate world. This wave has been accompanied by various defensive strategies of managers to defend target firms from these takeovers. These include: greenmail, golden parachutes, and leveraged management buyouts. This paper examines hostile takeovers and defenses against them from a stakeholder point of view; that is, from a consideration of the various obligations a firm has to the different groups that have a stake in the firm. I conclude that many stakeholders, such as workers and communities, have unjustly suffered as a result of hostile takeovers and the associated defenses, and that their rights as stakeholders have been violated. Finally, I suggest some possible reforms to protect these stakeholders in the future.
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Ken Hanly is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, at Brandon University. His interests are in business ethics and social philosophy. Recent publications include ‘The Ethics of Rent Control’ in JBE 10(3) (1991), and a review ofBusiness Ethics, by R. De George, inCanadian Philosophical Reviews, Vol xi(3) (June, 1991). An article on ‘The Moral Responsibility of Corporations’ is upcoming in Dialogue.
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Hanly, K. Hostile takeovers and methods of defense: A stakeholder analysis. J Bus Ethics 11, 895–913 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00871956
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00871956