It looks obvious but on second thought it is not, so much so that it deserves its own chapter in Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2012)
Thing 2: Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners
It comes down to this: a substantial part of the ownership of publicly traded companies is by people who are not committed to the future of the company but to easy profit, and because of that they favor management decisions increasing dividends and not investments in the company.
Interesting to watch what the Bank of England's chief economist Andy Haldane talking with BBC correspondent Duncan Weldon had to say "[firms are] almost eating themselves", an indication of how bad the problem is with shareholder value:
