Shareholder Activism and the Role of Marketing: A Framework for Analyzing and Managing Investor Relations

This paper proposes a conceptual framework that shows the role of (the) marketing (function) in managing investor relations. The framework complements existing literature on the marketing-finance interface and explicitly includes investor relationships as market-based assets. The framework provides (the) marketing (function) with tools to analyze and manage investor relations in order to improve companies’ market performance and increase shareholder value by lowering the costs of shareholder activism. Three real-life scenarios of shareholder activism demonstrate the implications of the framework for marketing practice.