During the last decades the idea of maximizing shareholder value as the ultimate goal for the corporation has been diffused throughout the world (Lazonick & O’Sullivan, 2000). Originating from the US context, the concept today has gained almost worldwide status as the legitimate goal of the public listed firm. The diffusion of the concept into governance systems, where other conceptions of firm performance have been previously salient, assumes a change in the norms regarding the objective of the firms and the role of the board of directors in charge of fulfilling this objective. Up to now, little research has been done on if and how these changes in values occur. In this paper we follow the development of attitudes related to the idea of shareholder value amongst Swedish board directors. This is facilitated by the use of a unique longitudinal dataset covering the period 1994 until 2009. Our empirical interest concerns the development of attitudes regarding the capital market, the responsibility of the board and its role. We find an increased emphasis on norms related to shareholder value, but at the same time a persistence of norms related to earlier perceptions of performance. This implies that even though new values have been integrated into the directors conception of appropriate behaviour, no de-institutionalization of old values has occurred. Instead the new values have been added to the old ones. Also most of the changes in director attitudes that have occurred during the period may be assigned to material changes in the economic reality or explained by interests of different involved parties. Changes in norms important for the governance of listed firms, thereby, seem to be negotiated over time, rather than follow a stepwise model.