Hello Jason
There is an excellent book on Corporate Finance called the Fundamentals of Financial Management by Brigham and Houston that you refer to in your book The Intuitive Investor as recommended supplementary reading.
In this book, each chapter is preceded by a real life illustration of what the chapter is about.
Chapter 16, Managing Current Assets, has a story about the turnaround at Core Industries that encapsulates what I was getting at and which I think will answer your questions.
I quote from this "At an annual meeting of shareholders the new CFO, Ray Steben said that while sales had increased by 12 percent, profits jumped 29 percent and the stock price 79 percent. The improvement resulted primarily from the company's renewed focus on shareholder value and better working capital management. In Steben's words 'These strong sales and earnings figures are further evidence that shareholder value will continue to be focused upon, and your management will be stewards of the capital entrusted to them' ".
Using this as an example, management should, in my opinion, focus exclusively on maximizing shareholder value and improving corporate governance.
As you point out, there will be factors that must be carefully considered so that this value is maximized, such as customers, employees, suppliers, environmental impact, technological advances, and so on.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards and a pleasant weekend
Savio