Abstract
Except for a small clutch of academic shark-defenders, everyone seems to know that hostile takeovers are wrong, destructive of people and industries, and damaging to the long-term competitiveness of corporate America. But analysis of the takeover process, absent insider trading, fails to identify any injury that is not replicated elsewhere in the business system. Current suggestions for remedying the situation seem inadequate, ill-fitted to the problem, or hostile to the entire capitalist system. Could it be that it is that system as a whole, or the assumptions underlying it, that is at fault?
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Lisa H. Newton is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Program in Applied Ethics at Fairfield University. She has written several articles, e.g., ‘Reverse Discrimination as Unjustified’, ‘Physician and Patient: Respect for Mutuality’ and ‘The Internal Morality of the Corporation’.
In developing the ideas for this paper, I have profited enormously from conversations with Lucy Katz, Philip O'Connell, Stuart Richardson, Mark Shanley, Andrew Sigler, S. Bruce Smart, Jr., and C. Roger Williams.
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Newton, L.H. Charting shark-infested waters: Ethical dimensions of the hostile takeover. J Bus Ethics 7, 81–87 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382001
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382001