With investors everywhere trying to read the tea leaves and see what the future holds for Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), the seemingly innocuous comments made by Jeffrey Bewkes and Richard Parsons may provide the best clue as to how things will change when Bewkes takes over:

Parsons, who will stay as board chairman, said in a statement that Bewkes "will have my full support, and I am confident that Jeff will deliver a new era of growth for all of our company's important stakeholders."

Bewkes added: "We have a lot to do, and I'm intensely focused on building shareholder value."

(emphasis added)

ValueBasedManagement.net features an excellent synopsis of the dichotomy between these approaches to management. Stakeholders encompasses a wide variety of people -- for a company of Time Warner's size, you could argue that it includes the entire world: Shareholders, bondholders, employees, employees' children, the communities where the company does business, customers, etc. This is widely considered the old-fashioned approach to doing business.

The "shareholder value" approach could best be summed up by Milton Friedman's description of the social responsibility of corporations: increase profits for shareholders.

So what changes can we expect under Mr. Bewkes? Using just the semantics difference as a guide, I would argue that we could see a leaner, meaner, more profit-oriented company: Layoffs when it makes sense, divestitures, and even a possible split-up of the company -- anything Mr. Bewkes thinks will increase profits.

For a great look at the decline of stakeholder-oriented management and the shift toward shareholder value, check out Alan Murray's Revolt in the Boardroom.