I collect 1,186 reported estimates of long-run value creation from 49 studies and present the first meta-analysis of the literature on shareholder activism and its effect on firm value in the longrun. This synthesis is necessary because shareholder activism is increasing over time and across...

Making detailed annual general meeting (AGM) minutes available online allows absentee investors to understand the discussion that took place during the AGM, and other interested parties to gauge the intensity of investor activism and stakeholder engagement from the questions posed. This paper...

The Korean Stewardship Code is remarkably similar to the UK Stewardship Code in terms of the language. However, a significant difference lies in the motivation. A major concern in the UK is the dormancy of institutional investors in widely-held shareholding. Conversely, a primary purpose of...

Die wachsende Präsenz aktivistisch Investierender in Deutschland fordert Unternehmendurch einen konfrontativen Stil und weitreichende Forderungen heraus. Dieser Beitragordnet das angloamerikanische Kapitalmarktphänomen im Spannungsfeld zwischenCorporate Governance und der Eigentümerstruktur...

Shareholder activism constitutes an increasingly prominent feature of corporate governance landscape. There is a controversy in prior research over whether and how much value activism creates. We examine whether estimates of the impact of shareholder activism are published selectively in prior...

Investors have in recent years attempted to add climate proposals to the ballot of shareholder meetings, requesting climate disclosures, say on climate, or emission targets. However, many corporate law systems view environmental (and social) issues as matters of strategy and statutorily...

In this Closer Look, we consider current trends in shareholder activism and their potential impact. We examine the introduction of universal proxies, the increase in “activism experience” among directors, and the changing strategies of activists. With the regulatory and market environments...

The Indian corporate landscape is witnessing a sharp increase in the number of cases revolving around shareholder activism wherein activist investors are no longer content to merely being passive owners and are exercising their will by virtue of their voting rights in general meetings. This...

This paper studies the role of shareholder activism on corporate leases. We find that the presence of shareholder activists is associated with large increases in leasing. This association is stronger in periods of high real estate prices and for firms with larger amounts of real estate assets....

This article examines the phenomenon of shareholder activism using a case study methodology as a qualitative research approach. Three affected Swiss public companies have been selected on the basis of an evaluation of all corresponding reports published by Finanz und Wirtschaft (FuW). The study...

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in shareholder engagement on environmental and social issues. In some cases shareholders are pushing companies to take actions that may reduce market value. It is hard to understand this behavior using the dominant corporate governance...

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in shareholder engagement on environmental and social issues. In some cases shareholders are pushing companies to take actions that may reduce market value. It is hard to understand this behavior using the dominant corporate governance...

Firms with female CEOs receive more shareholder proposals, especially lower-quality proposals, than firms with male CEOs. Institutional investors are more likely to sponsor environmental/social proposals that are ultimately withdrawn after private negotiations, while individual investors sponsor...

This paper formalizes a novel form of corporate insider trading based on non-insider information. In our model, insiders make trading decisions in anticipation of activist intervention. Because insiders have access to private information about firm fundamentals, they can better separate...

We examine the impact of financial disclosures’ readability on future shareholder activism, as expressed by shareholder-initiated proxy proposals. Based on a sample of 1,560 proposals made by shareholders of 818 S& P 1500 firms between 2000 and 2014, we find that the semantic complexity of the...

This survey provides an overview of theoretical and empirical research on information flows in corporations. It highlights key frictions preventing effective information flows and discusses how organizational structure and corporate governance can alleviate these frictions, focusing on three...

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in shareholder engagement on environmental and social issues. In some cases shareholders are pushing companies to take actions that may reduce market value. It is hard to understand this behavior using the dominant corporate governance...

Few can argue with the notion that corporations should at least consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) to better understand the impact of their operations on society. However, recent empirical tests suggest CSR has an ambiguous impact on firm performance. To shed new light on this...

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in shareholder engagement on environmental and social issues. In some cases shareholders are pushing companies to take actions that may reduce market value. It is hard to understand this behavior using the dominant corporate governance...

The paper’s prime objective is to understand the impact of Shareholder activism on firm performance. This study is conducted in a unique setup where traditional activist investors such as pension funds and hedge funds are not present. However, the activism cases are increasing yearly in an...

We contend that shareholder activism is a conflict-rich construct given the heterogeneity of actors involved and the divergence of motives and interests of firm managers, shareholder investors, and proxy advisors. Proxy advisors, an exogenous actor that interacts with both shareholders and...

Maffett, Nakhmurina and Skinner [2022, Importing Activists: Determinants and Consequences of Increased Cross-border shareholder activism. Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming] find that regulations on shareholder engagement and board structure lead to increased shareholder activism....

We study companies' decisions about holding annual shareholder meetings on-line during the Covid pandemic, and returning to classical in-person meetings post-pandemic. Among S&P 1500 companies, the frequency of virtual meetings shot up from less than 10 percent to more than 80 percent in the...

A dedicated investor relations (IR) function facilitates direct and ongoing dialogue between management and shareholders. This paper examines whether this form of engagement mitigates activism that relies upon support from other shareholders. We find that IR engagement is associated with...

Shareholder activism is now an important global phenomenon. We use a sample of nearly 7,000 activist shareholder campaigns across 56 countries to address two principal research questions related to the rise of activism. First, we develop a measure of corporate governance regulation that captures...

This study investigates the effects of high-speed rail (HSR) introduction in China on small investors’ on-site participation in shareholders’ general meetings, which is used to measure the "inverse distance–participation syndrome". We find that HSR introductionhas a significantly positive...

Shareholder activism has sharply increased over the past decade and spread both across countries and among different types of investors. Today, 50% of all engagements occur outside North America, with non-hedge fund investors accounting for one-third of all engagements. We investigate the...

We study 944 shareholder proposals submitted to 343 U.S. firms on climate change issues during 2009–2022. We use logistic and two-stage regression to estimate the propensity for a firm to be targeted or subjected to a vote at the annual general meeting and, for voted proposals, the...

We examine whether shareholder activism is associated with accounting reporting complexity (ARC). Using a sample of 3,377 unique firms during the 2010-2019 period, we find that firms with shareholder activism provide more complex accounting reporting. Further, both types of activism (including...