C-level executives are appointed and removed by the board. The board is appointed and removed by the shareholders. Yes, technically, executives are not required to act in the shareholders interests by law. But they are often appointed with the specific instruction to act in the shareholders' best interests, and can be removed from office for not doing that.
From my experience being a CEO and reporting to a board, trying to act in anything other than the shareholder's best interests would be... problematic, shall we say. I would need to be very convincing that what I was doing was in the best long-term interests of the organisation. Or have a board who agreed with the "not maximising shareholder value" goal.
It's only technically a myth that the only purpose of executives is to maximise profit for shareholders. That's definitely the most common instruction from the board, often implicit rather than explicit, and not doing that will get you into trouble in most situations. That trouble may not be a law suit, more probably just being summarily dismissed.
From my experience being a CEO and reporting to a board, trying to act in anything other than the shareholder's best interests would be... problematic, shall we say. I would need to be very convincing that what I was doing was in the best long-term interests of the organisation. Or have a board who agreed with the "not maximising shareholder value" goal.
It's only technically a myth that the only purpose of executives is to maximise profit for shareholders. That's definitely the most common instruction from the board, often implicit rather than explicit, and not doing that will get you into trouble in most situations. That trouble may not be a law suit, more probably just being summarily dismissed.