Assessing the impact of market logic and long-term strategic plans of top management in share buyback decisions

Purpose: This paper investigates stakeholders' perspectives of share buybacks in the context of time-horizons of investment decisions and strategy. Design/methodology/approach: We use in-depth interviews with stakeholders from eight listed UK firms as well as examine their publicly available data. Findings: Findings suggest that share buybacks involve a wide range of stakeholders' rational interests and long-term management perspectives as they enable firms to strategise operational plans towards their long-term corporate goals. Research limitations/implications: The findings are based on interviews with a small number of share buyback firms and the findings, therefore, may not be generalised to all firms. Practical implications: The results show that share buybacks may be part of the long-term interests of firms and not necessarily used as part of short-term EPS increases as suggested in the extant literature. Originality/value: The findings contribute to the literature on corporate pay-out policies in the context of short-term financial objectives vs long-term strategic objectives of stakeholders. They show that share buybacks can be an important part of firms' long-term strategic considerations.