Shareholder value isn’t a bad thing. The problem is using it as the only measure of success. Trying to balance many kinds of good is complicated, and people love simple solutions.
Also, I’m not sure I buy the premise of the article. Valuing stock options isn’t terribly complicated, and prices are printed in the newspaper. It’s hard to fake that. It’s true they’re much more volatile than the underlying stock; that’s the whole point.
If the company gives you a million dollars in stock options as a bonus two things can happen. If the share price goes down just a little, your million can become zero. If the price rises a little, your million can very easily become ten million. But your options didn’t have two different prices; the price changed.
