Aditya Chakrabortty investigates five words that made the modern world.

These are the strange, sometimes amusing but true tales by which the reigning ideas of our time came to be the words you hear on the Today programme, on other news programmes and late-night current affairs discussions. What do words like 'narrative' and 'transparency', bandied around by politicians and experts, actually mean?

In this series, find out where these terms came from, how have they changed and how are they shaping our world in this unexpected journey from a simple word to an expose of modern life.

Today, Aditya looks at 'shareholder value', a term which is both cause and alibi for so much of how our businesses behave. Contributors include Wall Street ethnographer Karen Ho, chief executive in company turnarounds Steve Francis, Professor of Accounting at Queen Mary University London Sukhdev Johal, and Clifford Soffield from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Produced by Eve Streeter
A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4. Show less