Essentially, yes, it's to increase stock value, but generally the courts are to defer to executives' judgment on such decisions as long as the executive is acting in good faith. So in practice you don't have to, like, exploit people or anything as long as you say not exploiting people is good for the long-term health of the company's good will or something.

As per that article, it is said they failed to comply with a law. And complying with laws will be a given in most contracts.

Making money comes after complying with law and rules.