So in business school, the one axiom they pounded into our heads was: "The goal of the corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth".

Which is great as far as it goes, but thinking it over tonight, it sounds a little naive. I think a better goal would be "... to maximize stakeholder wealth.". (and wealth in this sense not necessarily being money wealth. Perhaps a better word here would be "contentment", or "prosperity"

Why? Because (I believe) it will actually lead towards the goal of the first! By striving to increase the prosperity of your customers, or employees, or whomever, you should, in theory, have better word of mouth advertising (or less furious customers who shout from every treetop how much you suck), happier more efficient employees and possibly a product with more quality.

This approach seems a lot better to me than the approach of maximizing shareholder wealth... which, taken to it's extreme means moving everything overseas (where it's cheaper), using less quality parts, and ticking your customers off because the quality of your product or services degrades... with the added fact that even your old employees can't buy your stuff because they're not getting paid anymore (or won't buy your stuff because they're bitter). Which seems like it would decrease shareholder value!!