DOES THE STAKEHOLDER THEORY ENDANGER PREFERENCE OF VALUE MAXIMIZATION CONCEPT AS CORPORATE OBJECTIVE FUNCTION

For quite a while, there is a certain discontent of scientists, who are occupied with the process of managing corporations, with corporate objective functions that are accepted by the economic theory in general and by the corporate fi nance in particular. According to this, the purpose of this article is to reconsider, in a well argumented manner, adequacy, actuality and relevance of the value maximization concept as the corporate objective function on the basis of the stakeholder theory criticism. First of all, determinants and valuation of the stakeholder theory are in the focus of the observation with the aim to determine messages that named theory proclaims, and second, advantages and disadvantages of the value maximization concept are in the focus of observation with the aim to determine possibility that named concept is enable to rival the criticism that originates with the stakeholder theory. On the basis of executed analysis, it was explicitly concluded that value maximization concept must be implemented in the future as the corporate objective function, since the value is still relevant base for measuring management performance and there is no adequate «competitor» that could replace it. However, in this matter, it must be improved on the basis of stakeholder theory criticism. On the other hand, the stakeholder theory should drop its own proclaimed orientation and work some more in the sense of making efforts in the attempt that its good thoughts, suggestions and proposals put in the form of some clear and one-mean determined objective function. When all is said and done, it was concluded that corporate objective function must be determined in the form of maximization of the long-term market value of the firm, since this form more precisely determines value maximization concept.