Governance book of the year: Lynn Stout's the shareholder value myth.

• Author: Kris, James
• Position: OCTOBER

Lynn Stout (pictured below) is the Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law, Clarke Business Law Institute, at Cornell Law School. She is not the first to push back against the notion of shareholder value as the primary if not sole driver of management and board action. But her 2012 book, The Shareholder Value Myth, inspired renewed examination of this governing theory and sparked important, and some would say much-needed, debate about its true primacy. One prominent challenger was New York Times' columnist Joe Nocera, who cited the book in a column titled "Down with Shareholder Value." He wrote: "Over time, 'maximizing shareholder value' became viewed as the primary task of the corporation. And, well, you can see the results all around you. They're not pretty."

Because of the book's...