12 - Shareholder Engagement inside and outside the Shareholder Meeting

Summary

Capital market, regulatory and technological developments have created investor appetite and capacity for engagement with public companies. Our paper explores key engagement mechanisms and techniques employed by public company shareholders. First, shareholder-company engagement is a multi-dimensional, evolving phenomenon. Shareholders use a range of techniques including shareholder meetings, behind-the-scenes interactions, public campaigns, and online technologies. Second, shareholders mix and match different engagement techniques to leverage governance influence. Third, shareholders increasingly undertake their engagement activities collectively, highlighting growing capacity to overcome traditional collective action challenges. Finally, the shareholder meeting remains an important engagement mechanism. Its formal, in-person and public nature sets it apart from other mechanisms and gives it unique potential as a forum for scrutiny and accountability. Although low attendance rates indicate that shareholders do not routinely utilise the meeting to maximum effect, it is better conceived as having contingent significance because its potential as an accountability mechanism can prove critical when a company experiences serious governance problems.