Changing the World through Shareholder Activism?

Abstract

As one of the more progressive facets of the socially responsible investment (SRI) movement, shareholder activism is generally recommended or justified on the grounds that it can create social change. But how effective are different kinds of activist campaigns likely to be in this regard? This article outlines the full range of different ways in which shareholder activism could make a difference by carefully going through, first, all the more specific lines of action typically included under the shareholder activism umbrella and, second, all of the different ways in which it has been suggested that these could influence the activities of commercial companies. It is argued that - although much more empirical research is needed in the area - there are at least theoretical reasons for thinking that it will be difficult to influence companies through the standard actions of filing or voting on shareholder resolutions. However, some alternative strategies open to activists may allow them to increase their efficacy. It is specifically argued that even individual investors could be able to push for corporate change through devising a radically self-sacrificial campaign that manages to get the attention of powerful forces outside the corporate sphere.

Full text

51
Changing the world through
shareholder activism?
Joakim Sandberg
Joakim Sandberg
Department of
Philosophy, Linguis-
tics, and Theory of
Science, University of
Gothenburg
joakim.sandberg@
filosofi.gu.se
As one of the more progressive facets of the socially respon-
sible investment (SRI) movement, shareholder activism is
generally recommended or justified on the grounds that it
can create social change. But how effective are different
kinds of activist campaigns likely to be in this regard? This
article outlines the full range of different ways in which
shareholder activism could make a difference by carefully
going through, first, all the more specific lines of action
typically included under the shareholder activism
umbrella and, second, all of the different ways in which it
has been suggested that these could influence the activities
of commercial companies. It is argued that – although
much more empirical research is needed in the area – there
are at least theoretical reasons for thinking that it will be
difficult to influence companies through the standard
actions of filing or voting on shareholder resolutions.
However, some alternative strategies open to activists may
allow them to increase their efficacy. It is specifically
argu ed that even i ndiv idual investor s cou ld be abl e to push
for corporate change through devising a radically self-
sacrificial campaign that manages to get the attention of
powerful forces outside the corporate sphere.
Keywords: corporate governance, proxy voting, share-
holder resolutions, social campaigns, socially responsible
investment
Etikk i praksis. Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics
(2011), 5 (1), pp. 51–78.
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52 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
Shareholder activism is generally taken to be one of the main facets (or in-
vestment strategies) of socially responsible investment (SRI) and it could be
defined as the practice of using shareholder rights and privileges to try to
make companies improve their social, ethical and/or environmental perfor-
mance. Most commonly, shareholder activists use their right to introduce
and vote on resolutions at companies’ annual general meetings to try to
make them change their policies on certain social or environmental issues.
But other kinds of campaigns are also typically associated with shareholder
activism; for instance, engaging in dialogue with corporate managers, wri-
ting letters to other investors, and sending out press releases. These practi-
ces have become increasingly popular among investors with a social or
political agenda ever since «Campaign GM» in the early 1970s, when a
small group of investors tried to get the big auto company General Motors
to (among other things) appoint an African American to their board of di-
rectors. According to s ome rec ent rep orts , the total assets of ind ividuals and
institutions engaged in some kind of activist campaigns is now as much as
$703 billion in the U.S. and €730 billion in Europe (Eurosif 2006; Social In-
vestment Forum 2006).
Quite interestingly, rather little attention has been given to the practice
of shareholder activism in the philosophical and/or political discussions of
SRI. To the extent that it is mentioned at all, shareholder activism is most
often held out as the more «change»-oriented alternative to certain passive
forms of SRI; specifically as a stark contrast to the avoidance approach
practiced by the majority of SRI actors. The received view among a great
number of both commentators and proponents of socially responsible
investment is that there essentially are two rather different underlying moti-
vations or justifications of SRI as such: one is «consistency» and the other
«social change» (cf. Cowton 1998; Domini 2001; Mackenzie 1997). «Con-
sistency» is generally suggested to motivate various kinds of screening
efforts, i.e., decisions to actively invest in certain companies and/or to
refrain from investing in others based on their social or ethical characte-
ristics.1 Investors more keen on «social change», however, are then someti-
mes suggested to be better off engaging in shareholder activism. Cowton,
for instance, summarises this view as follows:
What, then, is the ethical basis for SRI as described earlier? Two strands, woven
together in some discussions of the ethics of investment, are discernible. The first,
which follows naturally from the prima facie case already stated, seeks to ensure that
consistent standards of behavior are applied in all areas of life. […] A pure avoidance
strategy might be the outcome of such a perspective. […] The second discernible
perspective, which can complement the first, tends to emphasize the consequences
of corporate actions upon others […]. This view is often reinforced by regarding
stockholders not as speculators or even investors, but as owners who not only
possess rights and privileges but also have responsibilities which entail a degree of
involvement. If a duty not to impose damage or harm on other people is regarded as
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a minimum responsibility […] then it might be concluded that the avoidance of
certain investments is appropriate, as under an 'integrity' approach. However, a
wider view of responsibilities is often taken, which tends to justify supportive crite-
ria or engagement in stockholder activism. (Cowton 1998: 187–188)
Indeed, Cowton is right in noting that some of the most prominent propo-
nents of the view that SRI needs to go more in the direction of social change
tend to favour shareholder activism exactly for this reason. Mackenzie, for
instance, suggests in his critical review of the SRI movement:
The procedures used by funds to enable people to avoid investing unethically are not
well suited to the pursuit of corporate reform. In order to rise to the challenge of cor-
porate reform, ethical funds need to become better at engaging with companies and
persuading them to change. This may require a significant shift in priorities from
'screening' to engagement. (Mackenzie 1997: 2)
Although there are grounds for being somewhat critical of the simplistic
dichotomy between the two «perspectives» of consistency and social change
implied in the quotes above, this article will not argue about general distinc-
tions. Instead, the topic is about the more concrete question of whether sha-
reholder activism really should be the natural alternative for investors inte-
rested in changing the world or «making a difference» as they say. That is,
can shareholder activism really be as socially effective as it generally is held
out to be? And if so, what kinds of activist campaigns are likely to be most
effective?
It should be noted that these questions ultimately are of an empirical
nature and therefore cannot be answered without further empirical investi-
gations. However, one could say that the present article does the theoretical
preparations needed for such investigations: first of all it outlines the full
range of theoretically distinct ways in which shareholder activism could
make a difference. It does this by carefully going through, first, a wide range
of more specific lines of action typically included under the shareholder
activism umbrella and, second, the many different ways in which it has been
suggested that these could influence the activities of commercial compa-
nies. Furthermore, the article reports on various considerations of both
empirical and theoretical nature that the previous literature on the subject
has suggested to be relevant to evaluations of the efficacy of various activist
campaigns. The conclusion of the article could be viewed as a challenge for
future empirical studies: namely, that there are theoretical reasons for thin-
king that mainstream shareholder activism is quite unlikely to be socially
effective.
The article is divided into two main parts. The first part focuses on the
social effectiveness of the most typical activities of shareholder activists, i.e.,
the filing of shareholder resolutions and voting on matters of corporate con-
cern at the annual general meeting. Even though proponents of the SRI
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54 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
movement generally suggest that such actions could be effective, even for
individual activists, it is argued that there currently is little empirical sup-
port for this view – and furthermore, as just noted, theoretical reasoning
speaks against it. In the second part of the article, some alternative sugges-
tions as to how shareholder activists can make a difference are outlined and
discussed. Even though many of these suggestions also seem difficult to be
utilised in an effective manner by most investors, it is argued that their
potential is somewhat greater. Focus in this part is on the likely characte-
ristics of especially promising activist campaigns.
Making a difference at the AGM
When you invest in a limited liability company, typically through buying
some of its shares on the stock market, you become a shareholder in that
company and are generally considered to be a (part) owner of the company.
As an owner or shareholder you enjoy certain rights and privileges in rela-
tion to the company you own. Now these rights and privileges are the tools
which shareholder activists generally use to try to persuade companies into
changing their ways. Domini and Kinder, for instance, write:
The [shareholder] activists start from one basic fact: shareholders own the company.
Supposedly management works for them. At least once a year shareholders have the
right to elect directors, and to propose and vote on resolutions relating to corporate
policy. If the owners fail to exercise their power to direct corporate policy, they waive
a powerful means for change. (Domini & Kinder 1986: 8–9)
Before getting into the particulars about whether various activist campaigns
can become «powerful means for change», it may be interesting to note the
other main actors of the corporate governance scheme implicit in the quote
above. Although shareholders generally are regarded as the owners of com-
panies, they are in fact quite far removed from the day-to-day business of
the companies they hold shares in. The most direct responsibility over the
regular activities of these companies rests with the management of the cor-
poration – that is, it is the management that decides on, e.g., the recruitment
of workers, employee compensation, and different particulars concerning
production. Even though they sometimes may be interested in hearing what
certain shareholder representatives think about these things, managers are
not obliged to consult or seek permission from the shareholders of the cor-
poration when they make these kinds of decisions. Furthermore, the most
direct responsibility of overseeing the managers’ work of running the
company lies with the board of directors of the company. It is the directors
who act as the primary representatives of the owners and who review (and
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Changing the world through shareholder activism?
help with) the major decisions of managers to hold the managers accounta-
ble for what they do.
Now as Domini and Kinder note, at least once a year companies (at least
in most countries) are required to hold a meeting with their shareholders –
the so-called annual general meeting (AGM). The AGM is really the only
place where shareholders can exert their direct power over the corporation
and get to meet and discuss issues concerning the activities of the company
with the managers and the board of directors in a formal way.2 Obviously,
then, the AGM is a central battleground for shareholder activists who wish
to influence the direction of the company. In the literature from proponents
of the SRI movement, two things that shareholders can do in connection
with the AGM are generally highlighted as the main tools of shareholder
activists: (1) the proposal of shareholder resolutions and (2) the voting on
(shareholder and management) resolutions. In the first two subsections
below, we will first discuss the probability of investors influencing compa-
nies directly by either proposing or voting on resolutions. Then in the third
subsection, we will turn to discuss some suggestions about the possible indi-
rect or social, effects of such lines of action.
Proposing shareholder resolutions
How are shareholders thought to be able to influence the behaviour of a
certain company through proposing resolutions at its AGM? Well, a reso-
lution in the context of corporate governance can perhaps be compared to
a bill or a motion in the context of public policy making (although we will
later note an important dissimilarity here), i.e., it is a proposition to the
effect that the company should do something rather specific or that the cor-
porate charter of the company should be amended in some specific way.
For instance, the set-up of the board of directors, general operational
matters and changes in the capital structure, could all be topics for resolu-
tions at a company’s AGM. In most countries, both the management and
individual shareholders can introduce these kinds of resolutions and, obvi-
ously, it is this latter possibility which is the point of departure for share-
holder activists in the present context. Melton and Keenan explain how
resolutions most often are used and how they can be utilised by shareholder
activists, as follows:
Proxy resolutions, which can be sponsored by shareholders or management, often
are used to address issues, ranging from ordinary and uncontroversial “house-
keeping” measures (such as minor changes in bylaws, or operations), to the creation
of new classes of stock or the election of an entirely new slate of corporate directors.
[But], as social activists discovered more than twenty years ago, such resolutions can
also be used to call attention to a company’s poor environmental record, its bad labor
relations, or its involvement in countries with oppressive regimes, among other
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56 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
things. In recent years, more shareholders – particularly religious organizations and
public sector pension funds – have effectively utilized their access to proxy ballots to
make themselves heard on a wide variety of social issues. (Melton & Keenan 1994:
45)
Resolutions on matters such as the environment, labour issues or involve-
ment in countries with oppressive regimes are sometimes referred to as
«social resolutions» (Domini 2001; Sparkes 2002).3 Certainly, it would seem
like a successful introduction of a resolution of this sort could make a con-
siderable difference to the way a certain company conducts its business –
given, of course, that the resolution also receives the majority of votes at the
AGM. If a company is asked to review its labour practices, for instance, or
to consider the impact of its activities on the environment to a greater
extent, then important social progress could be made. According to Kinder
et al., the possibility of investors proposing shareholder resolutions really
presents a unique opportunity for creating social change:
Proxy resolutions open the door to corporate management – private-sector opinion
makers whom social activists could not otherwise reach. And the resolutions are
surprisingly effective. This tactic is somewhat like the method generations of hill-
billy humorists said Ozark farmers used to get a mule’s attention: They hit him
between the ears with a two-by-four. […] A leading specialist in proxy solicitations,
Georgeson & Company, [actually suggests that] «it is largely through the use of the
proxy process that shareholders have succeeded in capturing the attention of the cor-
poration». (Kinder et al. 1993: 8–9)
Now, one would think that with such a number of individuals and institu-
tions having filed a great number of social resolutions over the course of
many years, proponents of the SRI movement should be able to produce
hard empirical evidence of the impact of all this activity. As several com-
mentators have noted before me, however, the area is actually characterised
by a conspicuous lack of empirical evidence (cf. Schepers 2003; Wen 2009).
Many books produced by SRI proponents are full of examples of social reso-
lutions, mainly resolutions put forward by large organisations or sharehol-
der lobby groups (cf. Brill et al. 1999; Brill & Reder 1993; Domini 2001;
Domini & Kinder 1986; Harrington 1992; Lowry 1993; Melton & Keenan
1994; Miller 1991; Ward 1991), but – apart from an abundance of anecdotes
– very little attention seems to have been given to proving empirically that
these resolutions have created tangible social change.
It has been pointed out to me that SRI proponents perhaps could appeal
to certain empirical studies concerning the effects of resolutions on corporate
governance issues filed by large institutional investors in the U.S. in the 1990s
(see e.g. Del Guercio & Hawkins 1999; Karpoff et al. 1996; Smith 1996; Wahal
1996.). Some of these studies indeed indicate that the proposal of shareholder
resolutions can be very effective in terms of changing corporate policies.
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However, the characteristics of these resolutions are obviously quite different
from the social resolutions of shareholder activists and, furthermore, it
remains a contentious issue in this literature whether these corporate gover-
nance resolutions really had any tangible effect on corporate operations.4
The lack of clear empirical support for their view should be quite distur-
bing for proponents of shareholder activism – and this is a point we will
return to in the following pages. Lacking empirical evidence against their
view, there is little more than speculation to lean on. But in what follows it
is suggested that, if one considers the legislation surrounding shareholder
resolutions in most countries, there are at least theoretical reasons for thin-
king that the idea that investors can influence corporate behaviour by intro-
ducing social resolutions actually seems rather far-fetched.
The legislation surrounding shareholder resolutions varies to a conside-
rable degree between different countries and it is therefore hard to say
exactly what the possibilities for influencing corporate behaviour through
the resolution process are for each and every investor. However, in most
countries and cases, it seems, it is rather hard for shareholders to success-
fully introduce shareholder resolutions on social issues.5 The first problem
has to do with the introduction of resolutions on social issues specifically.
We mentioned earlier that the primary responsibility for the day-to-day
activities of the corporation rests with the management of the company.
This is not just a figure of speech – in most countries, this means that mana-
gers have the right to ignore resolutions that could be said to deal with the
«ordinary business» of the corporation, or there are formal rules which pro-
hibit shareholder resolutions on such matters (Blair 1995; Logsdon & Van
Buren 2009). Exactly what should be counted as the «ordinary business» of
the corporation and what should not is, of course, open for interpretation
and debate. In very many cases, however, the governmental agencies which
supervise these things seem to have been more keen on granting managers
exclusive control over central corporate activities than on allowing share-
holders to have a say in such matters (cf. Kinder et al. 1993; Sparkes 2002).
The consideration above suggests a general problem for shareholder
activists, as indeed many other commentators have noted (cf. Melton &
Keenan 1994; Vogel 1978). Issues about, say, what products a certain com-
pany should manufacture (e.g. whether it should produce tobacco or not)
or what production process should be used (e.g. to what extent this should
be environmentally sustainable) could of course be said to be «general pro-
duction issues». And issues about discrimination, and whether or not a
company should employ equal opportunity practices in their employee
recruitment, could be said to be «general personnel issues». There are many
reports on cases where social resolutions have been excluded with reference
to the «ordinary business» clause. Sparkes, for instance, reports on one of
the most infamous cases in the U.S.:
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58 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
Shareholder rights are not unlimited […] as the [US Securities and Exchange Com-
mission (SEC)] only allows 'resolutions going beyond ordinary business which are
therefore suitable subjects for shareholder review through the proxy process'. Proba-
bly the most high-profile SEC decision in this regard was over Cracker Barrel in
1992. Cracker Barrel was a US store chain that was alleged to have a policy of not
employing homosexuals. In 1992 the New York City Employee Retirement System
attempted to file a shareholder resolution requesting the company 'to implement
non-discriminatory policies relating to sexual orientation and to add explicit prohi-
bitions against such discrimination to their corporate employment policy state-
ment'. The SEC ruled that this was a 'personnel' matter, and as such was part of the
'ordinary business' of the company, meaning that the resolution could not be filed.
(Sparkes 2002: 31)
Some further and more general problems can be added to the consideration
above. First of all, most countries have strict rules, not only governing what
resolutions may be about, but also governing what type of investors are
allowed to propose such resolutions. In the U.K., for instance, in order to be
eligible for proposing shareholder resolutions you must either control at
least 5% of the total voting power of all the outstanding shares of the
company (which, of course, could be huge sums!), or you must get the
backing of 99 other investors who each hold shares worth at least £100
(Sparkes 2002; Strätling 2003). These criteria are extremely strict and it
seems hard for typical individual investors, with only moderate amounts of
disposable income, to be able to meet them. Things are a bit easier in the
U.S., which may explain why shareholder activist campaigns in general have
been more common there (Louche & Lydenberg 2006), but still only inves-
tors who hold more than 1% of the total voting power of the corporation, or
$2000 in shares, and have held these for at least a year, are eligible for pro-
posing shareholder resolutions (Logsdon & Van Buren 2009). The restric-
tion on time alone could be a serious impediment for any investor who
wants to propose shareholder resolutions on social issues – not to mention
timely ones.6
A further kind of problem for investors who wish to propose sharehol-
der resolutions is that, in most countries, shareholders are required by law
to circulate their resolution proposals to all of the other shareholders of the
corporation (Lang 1996; Strätling 2003). In many cases, it may be almost
impossible to find accurate information from second-hand sources about
exactly what people are shareholders in a given corporation (Ward 1991).
And, even if you somehow could get access to this information, sending out
a copy of your resolution to the many thousands who most often hold sha-
res in public companies will cost loads of money. In some countries, the cor-
porations themselves are required to send out information about resolu-
tions a few weeks before the AGM, both those proposed by management
and those proposed by shareholders – this is often referred to as the «proxy
ballot» or «proxy statement» of the corporation. Certainly, if you could get
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the company to circulate your proposal on this statement you would fulfil
the requirement that all shareholders should be notified, but, in most cases,
shareholders are required to cover the costs of this service themselves
(Strätling 2003). All in all, we might conclude that the costs associated with
filing shareholder resolutions would seem to make this a very impractical
tool for effective use by everyone but the most well-off shareholder activists.
The considerations above should not be taken to imply that it is strictly
impossible for shareholders to successfully introduce resolutions on social
issues. However, they show some of the great difficulties involved in doing
so and, in light of these difficulties, it seems rather improbable that very
many attempts by socially minded investors to change corporate behaviour
through an introduction of social resolutions will be socially effective. Now
we should also remember that there is a further necessary step: in order to
be able to influence corporate behaviour through the successful filing of
social resolutions, these resolutions also need to get enough votes at the
AGM (at least for the resolutions to pass formally). In the following subsec-
tion, we will discuss what power investors have in this process.
Voting on resolutions
According to many SRI proponents, as noted above, the most powerful tool
of shareholder activists is the right to file and vote on shareholder resolu-
tions. This could be taken to suggest that the most straightforward strategy
for an investor who wants to make a difference through shareholder acti-
vism would be to first file a shareholder resolution on some social issue and
then try to vote this resolution through at the AGM. But it may be noted
that there are other possibilities here as well. Even when investors are
unable to propose resolutions of their own, they could vote on shareholder
resolutions sponsored by other investors – under certain circumstances,
perhaps other shareholder activists have successfully proposed a social
resolution to be voted on at the AGM (Ward 1991). Furthermore, investors
of course have the possibility to vote on (or, most often, against) different
resolutions proposed by the management (Brill & Reder 1993; Domini
2001).
But how likely is it that the voting behaviour of a single investor will be
able to change corporate behaviour? When reading some of the books from
proponents of the SRI movement, one certainly gets the impression that this
is extremely likely – even individual investors, they seem to say, can create
social change in this way. According to Judd, for instance, «[t]he crux of [the
activist] approach is that corporations operate on a one-share-one-vote
principle, allowing even a shareholder with a small stake in the company to
bring up questions about social issues at annual meetings and to file share-
holder resolutions» (Judd 1990: 10). Domini also writes: «Now that you
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60 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
know the impact that even a small positive vote can have, you have no rea-
son not to read through the [proxy] material, make a decision, and cast a
vote.» (Domini 2001: 103).
Once again, however, none of these writers presents much empirical
support for their views on this matter. To be fair, many of the different social
resolutions filed by campaigning groups are reproduced in SRI books
together with the percentages of votes in favour and against (cf. Domini &
Kinder 1986; Lowry 1993; Melton & Keenan 1994; Sparkes 2002; Vogel
1978). However, these lists are far from establishing the efficacy of indivi-
dual activists’ votes and, furthermore, it is interesting to see that there only
very seldom are substantial percentages of votes in favour of social resolu-
tions – a point which some SRI proponents actually concede (I will return
to this in the next subsection). Lacking clear empirical knowledge, one may
once again consider the legislative and factual context surrounding votes at
AGMs in different countries. The following considerations suggest that
there are at least theoretical reasons for thinking that the possibilities for
investors to influence corporate behaviour through voting on resolutions
are also very slim.
The first problem here is that not all kinds of investments in companies
actually carry voting power. Many empirical studies have shown that most
individual investors invest only indirectly in company shares, i.e., they invest
in unit trusts or other kinds of funds, and thus they cannot cast votes
directly at AGMs on their own. On top of this, however, it should be noted
that many countries have a system of so-called ‘A’ and ‘B’ shares and that
these shares carry different voting rights. While the rule may be one share-
one vote with regard to ‘A’ shares, the situation is rather different with regard
to ‘B’ shares – often these are only one share-one tenth of a vote, or they
simply lack voting power altogether (Rini 2002). While there normally is at
least some trade in ‘A’ shares on the stock market, the majority of shares
available on the stock market are ‘B’ shares. Thus, in the majority of cases,
the shares which typical investors – both individual and institutional – deal
with actually carry very little in the form of voting rights. This is of course
the same with bonds and other kinds of investments popular among all
kinds of investors.
The considerations noted above are relatively unimportant in the pre-
sent context, however, since even one share-one vote makes it extremely
hard even for investors who control a considerable amount of ‘A’ shares to
be decisive in votes at most public companies’ AGMs. The number of out-
standing shares in most companies on the world’s stock markets, it should
be noted, is enormous; for instance, the average number of shares in a com-
pany listed on the New York Stock Exchange was roughly 150 million at the
end of December 2007 (New York Stock Exchange 2007). (The total num-
ber of shares in the largest company, Exxon Mobil, was over 8 billion.)
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Hence, it would be extremely unlikely, even in theory, that any single inves-
tor’s votes would be decisive in a vote at any of these companies’ AGM.
To thi s theoretical unlikelihood of being decisive, as we might call it,
should be added the circumstances surrounding voting power and voting
procedures in most countries, which makes for an even larger practical unli-
kelihood of single investors’ votes being de cisive. First of all, it may be noted
that most of the shares on the world’s stock markets actually are controlled
by a rather small group of extremely rich institutions – e.g., pension funds,
mutual funds, insurance companies, and other kinds of financial trusts.
Institutional investors control over 70 percent of total shareholdings in the
U.K. and over 60 percent in the U.S. – where they also stand for over 80 per-
cent of all share trades (Mallin 1998; Wen 2009). Now this is true also with
regard to most individual companies – that is, the majority of shares in most
quoted companies are controlled by a handful of large organisations. For
this reason, it would actually seem totally insignificant how any single indi-
vidual investor votes, since these large organisations can steer the company
in whatever direction they want. In more than 95% of decisions at AGMs, it
may be noted, the decision rule is simple majority (Maug & Rydqvist 2001).
Of course, things could perhaps be different if institutional investors
themselves became shareholder activists to a greater extent but, as we will
see later, there are legal obstacles to their doing so.
Add to this a further way in which the voting procedure works in most
countries. As noted above, companies sometimes send out information
about resolutions a few weeks before the AGM, and this is often referred to
as the «proxy ballot» or «proxy statement» of the corporation. It is called so
because shareholders should be able to vote «by proxy», i.e., they need not
attend the AGM themselves but may simply signal to the management
(often by way of checking some boxes on the ballot and sending it back to
the company) in what way they intend to vote. Now, as a matter of fact,
extremely few shareholders indeed attend AGMs – according to a recent
estimate from the U.K., only one in a thousand shareholders actually
attends the AGM of «his» or «her» company (Strätling 2003). Furthermore,
very few investors even use the proxy ballot to make an active vote – that is,
they just sign the ballot and send it back to the company (Bottomley 2003).
We now come to the heart of the present point; in most countries, not decla-
ring ones’ voting intension on the proxy ballot gives managers the right to
use these votes in whatever way they see it fit (Maug & Rydqvist 2001).
Thus, one could say that the voting procedure is rigged in some sense to go
the managers’ way. According to some recent estimates in both the U.K. and
the U.S., on an average only about 3–4% of the votes cast at corporate AGMs
actually go against the managers’ recommendations (Maug & Rydqvist
2001; Strätling 2003; Webb et al. 2003). And, of course, as the system works,
this is only to be expected. If managers are opposed to social resolutions,
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62 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
which they often tend to be, then, it seems extremely hard for social inves-
tors to vote such resolutions through at the companies’ AGMs.
The considerations above may seem quite discomforting, and many
activists have complained that the modern corporation is far from being
democratic. Vogel relates the story of one shareholder activist, Saul Alinsky,
who dreams of the following scenario:
I want to be able to move t hose stock holder meet ings into Yan kee Stadiu m – an d thi s
goes for all corporations. They will have their thousand or so stockholders there, and
we’ll have 75,000 people from Proxies for People. I want to see the chairman of the
board – in front of the cameras and the mass media, with 75,000 people voting “aye”
on one of our resolutions – announce that 98% of the stock is in his hands [and]
votes “nay,” and they win. I want to see him look at 75,000 people and tell them that
they haven’t got a damn thing to say about it. (Vogel 1978: 214)
The considerations above should certainly be extra frustrating from the
perspective of shareholder activism – even though many investors may
group together and try to make a company change its ways, it seems virtu-
ally impossible to get a social resolution passed at a larger-sized company’s
AGM. Given the poor possibilities in this regard, one may of course wonder
why shareholder activists bother to propose and vote on resolutions at all –
that is, why the focus has been so much on resolutions in the first place. In
the following subsection, we will discuss one possible explanation of this.
The social dimension of resolutions
Our focus so far has been exclusively on the direct impact of proposing and
voting on resolutions. Since there seems to be very little possibilities for
investors to make a direct difference through filing and voting on resolu-
tions, we said, one might wonder why shareholder activists focus so much
on resolutions in the first place. The answer, according to some writers, is
that filing and voting on resolutions can have considerable indirect, or
social, effects. According to Kinder at al., for instance, «[t]he [shareholder
resolution] proponents’» goal is not so much the resolution’s passage – they
rarely win – as the start of a dialogue with the company. Shareholder acti-
vists often accomplish through talk what they cannot through the ballot
process» (Kinder et al. 1993: 8). It may be noted that some very prominent
proponents of the SRI movement, like Domini (2001), prefer to talk about
«direct dialogue» instead of shareholder activism, and perhaps we could
understand this terminological choice (at least partly) in light of the kind of
suggestion just mentioned as well.
The present subsection briefly discusses some possible indirect effects of
proposing and voting on resolutions at a company’s AGM. In order to cate-
gorise the different suggestions here, we may start by considering who the
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intended receivers of the social message of proposals and votes are. Accor-
ding to one suggestion, the intended receivers would primarily seem to be
managers and/or directors. According to this idea, namely, even though a
certain attempt to vote a resolution through at the AGM may have little
chances of succeeding, it may still have an impact on the decisions of mana-
gers and directors. Lowry, for instance, writes:
Until 1988 concerned investors sponsoring shareholder proxies operated under the
assumption that their proxies would never pass if they were opposed by manage-
ment; generally that assumption was correct. Nevertheless, shareholders were
content with 3 to 5 percent of the total votes and the frequent media attention their
proxies received. In fact, most corporate managers take shareholder proxies seri-
ously. They are concerned that their annual meetings run smoothly, that controversy
be avoided, and that most, if not all, shareholders are supportive of company policies
and practices. (Lowry 1993: 27)
Brill et al. (1999) similarly write:
Most social resolutions fail to gain more than 10 percent of the vote; but they do
bring into focus important issues that companies sometimes do not want called to
public attention. The threat of exposure is often enough to motivate companies into
taking actions they otherwise would not. Exposure is even more of a concern today,
when information travels quickly, is easily available, and is being monitored by social
investors, activist groups, the media, and the public at large. (Brill et al. 1999: 143–
144)
The reason for why proposing and voting on resolutions may have a tangi-
ble impact on managers and directors, according to these writers, even
though there is no real chance of the resolutions’ passing, would be that
managers and directors are hypersensitive to the «threats of exposure»
which such acts are thought to consist in.7 Is this true? Well one must cer-
tainly agree that it is possible that some managers and directors are hyper-
sensitive to these things. However, for the third time, SRI proponents have
done little in the way of producing solid empirical evidence which proves
that this really is the case for most managers.
Interestingly enough, we see in the quotes above that some of them actu-
ally admit that extremely few social resolutions have ever been successful. It
is obviously hard to measure the social effects of shareholder activism in
general and the success of these kinds of attempts at influencing managers
and directors in particular. Some commentators try to suggest that even
though most managers state that they are not influenced by social interest
groups, sometimes their behaviour indicates that they are (Mackenzie 1997;
Vogel 1978). However, this suggestion could be turned the other way
around as well – even though some managers may state that they pay close
attention to what social interest groups say, it is not clear whether this actu-
ally influences their decisions.
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64 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
In the end, theoretical considerations suggest that it is simply implausi-
ble to think that many companies would hire managers who are so hyper-
sensitive to the whims of the smallest group of people as SRI proponents
make them out to be. According to standard economic theory, the central
aim of managers is to maximize shareholder wealth, that is, to maximize the
share price. Now, even though in reality managers may be far from perfectly
economically rational, it is in a sense their job to try to be so – and it simply
seems irrational for them to pay attention to the «threats of exposure» from
social investors unless the threats in fact are backed up with some kind of
real power. As long as shareholder activists have as little influence in the
actual votes at corporate AGMs as they do, then, it would seem foolish for
managers to pay more attention to their resolution proposals and voting
behaviour.
It should be noted, furthermore, that simply proposing or voting on a
certain resolution in fact is something quite different from actually talking
to the kind of groups that Brill et al. discuss, or even threatening to talk to
these groups. Perhaps talking to the media and spreading information to
other activist groups actually are quite promising ways in which even indi-
vidual investors can make a difference to corporate practices – we discuss
these suggestions in the following section. At the present juncture, however,
it is not ideas of this kind that we are discussing and, surely, media coverage
does not follow automatically from a proposal of or vote on a (social) reso-
lution at a generic company’s AGM.
While the suggestion that managers are hypersensitive to the resolution
proposals and voting behaviour of social investors seems to fail, another
suggestion may be that such kinds of behaviour may influence other inves-
tors to propose similar resolutions or vote in a similar fashion. In our
discuss ion above, it may b e noted that the fo cus wa s onl y on the p ossibiliti es
for single investors to make a difference at AGMs, but it may of course be
argued that this is too narrow. Investors may also act as collectives, and per-
haps the distinction between single investors and collectives is not as clear
cut as it may initially seem. By acting in a certain way, a single investor may
give rise to more investors acting in this way, creating a kind of collective
effect. Domini, for instance, seems to be after some idea of this kind when
she writes:
When a large percentage of the owners of the world’s business enterprises believe
that profit must not come at the loss of human or environmental justice, then com-
panies will respond. They will serve as effective means of delivering desired goods
and services to the population in a manner that does not harm their owners, who are
– after all – living beings. If the owners of the economic engine of the world recog-
nize that money doesn’t help if you can’t breathe, then they will create rules that
allow for both breathable air and financial return. […] The socially managed port-
foli o is a part of something larger than itself; it is a par t of a gl obal reformation of th e
way business is done. (Domini 2001: 17)
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We should certainly grant that the more of other investors one is able to
include in a collective voting campaign, the more likely it is that the cam-
paign will be effective. Miller correctly notes, in relation to shareholder acti-
vism, that «[a]s a lone investor, any actions you might take might not be
nearly as effective as those taken in concert with other like-minded indivi-
duals» (Miller 1991: 328). However, it is not obvious exactly how this per-
suasion of other investors is supposed to work.
A first problem is that the majority of votes cast at most limited compa-
nies’ AGMs actually are proxy votes (Bottomley 2003; Strätling 2003) – that
is, the majority of the voting shareholders cast their votes long before the
AGM even starts, and it certainly seems hard to influence these sharehol-
ders’ voting behaviour by voting in a certain way at the AGM. Furthermore,
it is unclear whether even a quite successful persuasion of other individual
investors will do the trick. Even though other individual investors probably
are the ones most likely to be impressed by an individual activist’s resolution
proposals and voting behaviour, the real power over the corporation, as
suggested by the considerations above, rests in the hands of the managers
and institutional investors. In order for a collective shareholder campaign
to work, it should also be noted that it is not only necessary that all of the
investors in this collective be persuaded to feel sympathetic to the initiating
investor’s social cause, but they also need to vote on exactly the same reso-
lutions and in a similar way. As some writers suggest, this need for organi-
sati on on t he par t of th e init iatin g inv estor may i n itself m ake prop osing and
voting on resolutions a difficult way of influencing corporate behaviour
(Powers 1971; van der Burg & Prinz 2006).8
The alternative route is of course to focus on institutional investors
rather than on individual such, or that institutional investors themselves
should become shareholder activists.9 This is probably a more fruitful sug-
gestion. However, a rather different kind of problem arises for this route,
namely that institutional investors actually are very much like large compa-
nies. Just like large companies, investment institutions have managers who
are hired on the basis of their leadership skills and their understanding of
economics and finance; these managers are expected to live up to certain
economic goals; they have principals – the beneficiaries – who expect a cer-
tain return on their assets and so forth. In fact, institutional investors may
be even more bound to the goal of maximising profits than commercial
companies. According to the so-called «prudent man» rule, a legal rule that
exists in most countries, trust managers are to manage trusts in the sole
(financial) interests of the beneficiaries (Blair 1995; Powers 1971). Many
institutional investors appeal to this prudent man rule – or, more generally,
to their duties as fiduciaries (Sandberg forthcoming) – to explain why they
refrain from engaging in shareholder activism on social and environmental
issues. And given all of this, if it is hard for individual investors to influence
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66 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
corporate managers and directors to do a certain thing, it seems equally
hard – if not harder – to influence the managers of large investment institu-
tions to do this thing.10
The considerations above suggest that it is hard for shareholder activists
to influence corporate behaviour through proposing and voting on resolu-
tions, even when the possible indirect effects of such behaviour are taken
into account. Before leaving this discussion about resolutions, a final pro-
blem with focusing on resolutions as the vehicle for shareholder activism
should be noted. It was suggested at the outset of this section that a resolu-
tion in the context of corporate governance could be compared to a bill or
a motion in the context of public policy making. A problem with this ana-
logy, however, is that, unlike legislative bills, most resolutions actually are
not binding. As Brill et al. (1999: 142) put it, «[m]ost resolutions are non-
binding requests or recommendations by shareholders to managers. Even
with a majority vote, a resolution does not become company policy without
management approval». We see here, then, the ultimate example of the lack
of power that shareholders have over corporate practices as compared to,
for instance, the managers of the corporation.
However, if resolutions basically are requests, why couldn’t investors just
raise their hand at the AGM, address the managers straight out and tell
them what they think they should be doing? In the next section, we outline
some potentially more promising possibilities in the realm of shareholder
activism.
Alternative shareholder activism
Much of the debate over shareholder activism, as should be obvious by now,
has focused on the right of investors to propose and vote on resolutions at
the AGMs of the companies they hold shares in. But we will now leave this
discussion and instead focus on some potentially more promising possibi-
lities that are open to investors in this context. As noted at the outset of the
article, many other ways in which one can use one’s power as a shareholder
to create corporate changes have been suggested in the literature and these
are often taken in under the umbrella term of shareholder activism.
Domini, for instance, writes:
The second aspect of socially responsible investing [apart from positive and negative
screening] is direct dialogue. You can leverage your ownership of a piece of a busi-
ness to gain a place at the table and to raise a broad range of issues. […] This dialogue
takes many forms. Delivering a social audit to a company for enrichment and
comment is a way of alerting corporate management to issues. Letters written to gain
clarification or to express either concern over or thanks for a position the company
has taken can lead to good results. Consumer boycotts, selective purchase cam-
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paigns, and even lying down in front of bulldozers have been used. But the most
structured and widely used form of direct dialogue with corporate management
teams is the voting and filing of shareholder resolutions. (Domini 2001: 22)
Interestingly, some of the suggestions in the quote above are not things that
one really needs to be a shareholder to engage in (nor are they things that
investors can do in their role as shareholders); for example, consumer boy-
cotts and (simply) lying down in front of bulldozers. For this reason, we may
disregard those suggestions in the present context. However, there are cer-
tainly a lot of things that investors can do because they are shareholders or
investors, and which potentially could lead to corporate changes or more
socially beneficial outcomes. Before discussing the strategic issue of what
line of action could be most effective for shareholder activists, let us simply
go through some of the most commonly suggested lines of action in the
present context. Although they are often mentioned in passing, namely, few
authors give a more thorough introduction to the whole range of alternative
actions open to shareholder activists; what the fundamental point of these
actions is; and also how these relate to each other.
The first suggestion stems from the fact that the AGMs of corporations
are a kind of social gatherings where managers, directors and shareholders
meet, discuss and decide on important issues concerning the future of the
company. In our discussion in the previous section, focus was mainly on the
part about decisions – i.e. the resolutions which management or sharehol-
ders can propose and which then are voted on. According to some writers,
however, the discussions at AGMs are just as important as the decisions.
Most impor tantly, a ll sha reho lders – ir resp ective of how much votin g power
one has – have the right to ask formal questions to the directors of the com-
panies. Ward explains the formal procedure at most AGMs as follows:
The Chair will start the meeting by making a general statement about the year’s per-
formance, and presenting the Annual Report and Accounts. The shareholders will
then be asked to approve any changes to the Board and the appointed auditors, to
ask questions, and occasionally to vote on resolutions.
You get your opportunity to put a question after the Chairman’s statement. It can be
intimidating to do so, especially at a large company meeting, so practice in advance.
Give your name, and say whether you are a shareholder or a proxy. (Ward 1991: 138)
According to some writers, asking questions at the AGM is actually a stra-
tegy employed by many shareholder activists. This strategy can be seen as a
part of the more general suggestion that it is important to start a direct dia-
logue with corporate managers or directors. Other ways of starting a direct
dialogue with managers and directors could be to write letters to them
directly, to set up meetings with them or to simply go to their corporate
headquarters and try to talk to them (Brill et al. 1999). Ward writes:
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68 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
As an example of what can be done, Father Patrick O’Mahoney, a Catholic priest in
Solihull, wrote to about a hundred companies on behalf of the Archdiocese of Bir-
mingham’s £2.5m investment funds. Some companies tried to brush him off, but
others took trouble over their replies, and in some cases situations seem to have
received attention at board level, which would not have been the case without him.
(Ward 1991: 135)
The lines of action suggested above could of course be combined in various
ways and also combined with more traditional activist activities. According
to some writers, the most common campaign strategy among retail SRI
funds starts with contacting the managers of companies engaged in activi-
ties which are perceived as socially or environmentally problematic and
having a constructive dialogue. If the managers are not persuaded to change
their ways and give up these activities, however, social resolutions are pro-
posed and the dialogue enters a more confrontational phase. If the social
resolution process also fails, finally, quite often all shares in the company are
sold and further investments in the company are avoided (Sparkes &
Cowton 2004). Some writers explicitly distinguish between constructive
and confrontational ways of talking with companies and discuss the merits
and demerits of these lines of action in different situations. It is sometimes
said, for instance, that dialogue tends to be more confrontational in the U.S.
than in the U.K., reflecting different cultural and/or legislative traditions
(Louche & Lydenberg 2006).
While proposing hostile shareholder resolutions, or simply threatening
to do so, may be considered fairly confrontational as compared to con-
structive dialogue, some writers suggest that even more confrontational
methods may be appropriate. If both talking to managers and proposing
resolutions (or threatening to do so) fails, one suggestion is that activists
could try to disrupt AGMs by, for instance, organising a demonstration out-
side its venue. According to Lang, for instance,
[s]ome organised groups, such as the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, have
adopted much more proactive stances at AGMs and have positively sought to disrupt
the meetings. If you believe the company can be persuaded to change its stance
through persuasion and reason, such disruption is likely to make your job more dif-
ficult. If you believe that a large company is basically ruthless and will pursue profits
at all costs, then a demonstration at an AGM can focus media attention on a
company and up the pressure. (Lang 1996: 117–118)
Organising demonstrations may not be the only option here – another pos-
sibility may be to try to disrupt the AGM from within. Lang (1996: 115)
writes: «The presence of the press means directors need to be on their best
behaviour – photographs of security staff forcibly removing shareholders
do not promote the image of a caring and responsible company.»
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The two suggestions above implicitly appeal to the power of the media
and accept that the media can play an important role in a successful social
campaign. Now, ideas similar to this have already been noted in our discus-
sion of the social dimension of resolutions. According to Melton and
Keenan, for instance, «while proxy activists seem unlikely to overcome the
tendency of most shareholders to vote with management or decline to vote
on resolutions dealing with social issues, they can and have changed corpo-
rate behaviour. Such resolutions, whe n combined with a campa ign to publ icly
expose the perceived «wrongdoing» of a corporation, can bring results»
(Melton & Keenan 1994: 49–50, emphasis added). Rather than simply
hoping that the media will write about some other line of action they have
pursued, then, shareholder activists could go directly to the media and try
to influence both the managers of the company (or companies) in question
and the general public to see the social problems connected with a certain
kind of corporate activity. Although not all reporters may be interested,
some reporters could be persuaded to see the public interest in certain
social issues related to the corporate sector. Ward gives the following
recommendations in connection with her suggestion about asking ques-
tions at the AGM above:
Send out a press release in advance and after the meeting, speak to any reporters
from the financial press who are present. They may be interested in you as a 'news
angle'. Take along copies of your literature, and a further press release, to give to
them and any other shareholders who are interested. (Ward 1991: 139)
The media is not the only power outside corporations that activists can go
to, and the managers and directors are not the only ones with whom acti-
vists can start a dialogue. As noted previously, many writers hold the practi-
ces of institutional investors central to what goes on in the business world.
Perhaps individual investors can be more aggressive in their campaigns to
try to persuade institutional investors (although it certainly seems difficult
to do so, as noted above). Domini and Kinder, for instance, write:
The willingness of big institutions to vote against management leads me to believe
that more institutions can be persuaded to support social issue proxy efforts and
similar campaigns. This is where the individual ethical investor can play an impor-
tant role. The institutions will not move of their own accord. They respond to pres-
sure. So it is critically important for ethical investors to know who controls their
pension fund, for example. They should study the organizations in which they are
involved – from colleges to charities – and see who runs their money. The right ques-
tions about their votes may yield interesting results. (Domini & Kinder 1986: 209)
Furthermore, as Domini and Kinder indicate here, institutional investors
are not the only kind of larger organisations that investors could contact.
They may also contact charity organisations and other kinds of activist
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70 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
ones, and perhaps they may even try to collaborate further with these orga-
nisations. Brill and Reder write:
If you qualify to propose shareholder resolutions for one or more companies, you
can become a particularly effective activist by informing progressive organizations
whose causes you support that you will submit resolutions for them. In 1987 People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), working through friendly sharehol-
ders, introduced resolutions at major cosmetics companies’ annual meetings
demanding the release of animal test data. […] In 1990 Colgate-Palmolive became
the first company to make this data public. The Council on Economic Priorities
report s that Colgate-Palmolive is now a corporate leader in substantially redu cing its
number of animal tests and/or actively researching alternatives. (Brill & Reder 1993:
22–23)
The last resort, if both dialogue and resolutions fail, and probably one of the
most provocative possibilities, according to some writers, is to simply take
corporations to court. While it should be noted that ethical arguments are
not always relevant in a legal context, many ethically unacceptable corpo-
rate activities are problematic also from a legal point of view. According to
Powers, «[c]orporate law allows the stockholder legal recourse […] if he
believes that management’s practices are ultra vires (that is, beyond the
powers granted by the state charter), negligent, illegal, fraudulent or involve
a clear abuse of discretion» (Powers 1971: 107). If shareholder activists are
successful at filing a legal case against a certain company, it is not implausi-
ble to think that taking the company to court sometimes could be very
effective. Powers continues:
The following example shows where it might apply to the social investor. A company,
operating in violation of state pollution laws, has not yet been prosecuted by the
public authorities. The stockholder can bring a derivative suit in order to force the
management to comply with the pollution laws. Again in this case, the initiative and
not its ultimate success in court, could bring the desired result, since the action
might persuade management to comply in order to avoid prosecution or harmful
publicity, or might force the public authority to take action to force compliance.
(Powers 1971: 107)
Characteristics of promising possibilities
So far, we have only attempted to describe in some more detail the full
range of suggestions as to what shareholder activists may do apart from
proposing and voting on resolutions. Now what should one say about these
suggestions? Obviously they are of quite different character, and the suita-
bility for use by different kinds of investors may vary to a great degree
between different suggestions.
First and foremost, it is important to stress that much more empirical
research is needed in relation to all of these suggestions. While the share-
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holder resol utio n pro cess is d iscus sed at some len gth in many books on SRI,
it should be noted that many of the suggestions given above are only appea-
led to as last resorts when the problems connected with proposing and
voting on resolutions are encountered. If proponents of the SRI movement
want to build a strong case for the idea that SRI really makes (or can make)
a difference, however, some evidence stronger than just the anecdotal one is
needed.11 In the remainder of this section, what the author of this article
takes to be some general characteristics of the kind of campaigns that are
the most promising in the present context are outlined. While most of the
conclusions above have been negative, it is important not to neglect the real
possibilities that shareholder activists actually have for creating positive
social change through alternative activist campaigns.
Although it is hard to say exactly what kind of activist campaigns have
the greatest potential for social progress here, the first general characteristic
of especially promising campaigns is probably that forces or powers outside
the corporations themselves are used to put pressure on companies to
change. One kind of thinking that is close at hand but which shareholder
activists probably should focus less on is the appeal to the hypersensitivity
of managers and directors. If the talk of «direct dialogue» and asking ques-
tions at AGMs is taken at face value, the idea once again seems to be that
investors can influence managers to change their companies’ ways, either by
way of moral argumentation or through some kind of threats of exposure.
However, as suggested above, it is not very likely that managers actually will
listen to activist shareholders if their threats are not also backed up by some
kind of real power – financial or otherwise. Some SRI proponents indeed
share this pessimism. According to Brill et al. (1999: 141), for instance,
«[i]nvestors with small holdings have only a slim chance of reaching the ear
of upper management». According to Lang, furthermore, some managers
have indeed developed quite elaborate strategies, which allow them to
counteract social investors who ask questions at their AGMs:
As some shareholders and pressure groups have begun to use AGMs to put public
pressure on companies, directors have adopted some subtle procedures to exert
control of the AGM. Some companies will direct investors who hold single shares to
sit together – possibly even corralled in by security staff. The chair of the meeting
can then try not to call anyone sitting in that block. […] Other companies attempt
to reduce the effectiveness of questions by controlling the sound system, so questio-
ners seen as troublemakers are seated where they don’t get the opportunity to speak
through a microphone. (Lang 1996: 117)
I will not elaborate on these observations here. The point is simply that sha-
reholder activists’ campaigns are much more likely to achieve their goals if
forces outside corporations are used to put pressure on these companies. As
we have seen, the managers and directors of modern corporations have
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72 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
immense powers over these corporations and their activities, and thus they
also have immense powers over societal activities in general and over peo-
ple’s lives. In order to influence managers and directors, shareholder acti-
vists need to appeal to forces that can balance this kind of corporate power.
When I say «forces outside corporations», I am thinking primarily of large
organisations (commercial or not), the media, governments and the legal
system. If investors were to get one or more of these forces on their side,
their social campaigns would probably become a whole lot more effective.
Exactly what activists should do to get these kinds of outside forces on
their side is certainly not obvious. Maybe writing letters to institutional
investors, sending out press releases or taking companies to court would
work. The idea that governments are forces that social campaigners can
appeal to is an idea that is not as common as the others in the literature on
SRI (although Powers talks about influencing «the public authority to take
action to force compliance»). To the extent that social campaigns can put
pressure on government agencies or officials to make some relevant legisla-
tive changes, however, this would indeed seem to be a great power to be
reckoned with (cf. Sandberg forthcoming).
Now, a second characteristic of especially promising campaigns is that
they probably would have to be self-sacrificing in a very real way – that is,
they would probably cost both a lot of money and a lot of time and effort.
Many writers note the enormous costs which often come with taking influ-
ential companies to court. Powers, for instance, writes:
The impediments to successful derivative suits are truly monumental. For example,
in some cases (though dependent upon relevant state law), if the shareholder holds
less than five percent of the outstanding stock of the corporation or his stock has a
market value of less than $50,000, he must post security to cover the “reasonable”
legal and other costs incurred by the company in its legal defence; if the stockholder
loses, he forfeits the security. Of course, the litigant’s own legal expenses in the
draw n-out legal process c ommon in this type of suit will be substantial. The investor
should also be advised that success rates in this sort of suit are low. (Powers 1971:
107–108)
More generally, however, we should probably concede that any successful
activist campaign on the part of an investor is likely to be both extremely
time-consuming and quite costly. To see this, consider first the following
line of reasoning: even though the lines of action discussed above are open
to investors as investors, or as shareholders, some readers may feel that there
still is nothing in these lines of actions which depend on the fact that the
agent in question is an investor. That is, also non-investors can write letters
to institutional investors, send out press releases and participate in protests
outside some company’s AGM. So what is the reason for holding out these
things here, and not discussing, e.g., consumer boycotts and other kinds of
even more progressive lines of actions open to activist civilians? Well, the
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Joakim Sandberg
73
Changing the world through shareholder activism?
reason given by most SRI proponents, as should be rather clear by now, is
that investors are in a better position to use the first group of actions in
effective social campaigns. Because investors are shareholders in, or gene-
rally considered (part) owners of companies limited by shares, they have
certain rights and privileges in relation to these companies that they can use
to influence these companies’ activities in a way in which non-owners
cannot.
Now if the line of reasoning above is to work for the kind of actions cur-
rently under discussion, it must be the right to extensive information about
(and perhaps the publicly accepted affiliation to) the company they hold
shares in that put shareholders in a better situation than others to influence
companies through, e.g., writing letters to institutional investors and sen-
ding out press releases. However, there is an obvious problem with this
appeal to the informational advantage of shareholders. Many writers (espe-
cially in the corporate governance literature) complain that it is often hard
for investors to get a hold of relevant and accurate information about the
activities of the companies they invest in. While investors may be in a better
situation than non-investors when it comes to having access to information
about the companies they have invested in, then, it is often extremely time-
consuming and costly to actually get a hold of this information (cf. Char-
kham & Simpson 1999; van der Burg & Prinz 2006; Webb et al. 2003).
We may take this as a general reason for thinking that most successful
activist campaigns need to become quite self-sacrificing and accept diffe-
rent kinds of costs. In order for letters to institutional investors or press rele-
ases to the media to be sufficiently appealing to these forces, investors
would plaus ibly h ave to gathe r a c onsid erabl e ma ss of i nformati on about t he
relevant companies and build a strong case about a certain moral problem
related to their business activities. As noted above, Domini and Kinder sug-
gest that asking institutional investors «[t]he right questions about their
votes may yield interesting results» (Domini & Kinder 1968: 209). Further-
more, Ward (1991: 139) says about media exposure: «They may be interes-
ted in you as a ‘news angle’. Take along copies of your literature, and a
further press release, to give to them and any other shareholders who are
interested.» However, asking the right questions and presenting a suffici-
ently interesting news angle surely takes a lot of preparation. And prepara-
tion is also important for making a strong legal case against some company.
There are further reasons to think that the more self-sacrificing a certain
activist campaign is, the greater potential it has to influence corporate beha-
viour. Of course, simply printing out information material to a large num-
ber of investors or reporters may be quite costly. Ward summarises the
points above quite nicely by saying that «[t]he costs of running a campaign
could be heavy, especially since you will get much further if you make your
presentation well argued and researched, easy to read, and interesting and
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74 ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2011
attractive enough not to go straight into the bin» (Ward 1991: 133). One of
the main reasons why one may think that the most successful social cam-
paigns by shareholder activists will be rather self-sacrificing, however, is
that there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that many of the suggestions
discussed above will be actively countered by the targeted companies. Some
writers note that giving extensive information to reporters, although an
effective way of influencing public opinion, may open activists to libel char-
ges. Lang, for instance, writes:
1995 saw the start of one of Britain’s longest running libel trials when Greenpeace
London protesters were sued by the hamburger chain McDonalds for libel after they
wrote a leaflet connecting the company with cutting down of the rainforest – an alle-
gation McDonalds have repeatedly denied. In Austria the head of the country’s
largest electricity company took a Greenpeace campaigner to court for defamation
because he had said that building a new coal-fired power station was tantamount to
wilfully killing people because of the additional deaths which would result from the
greenhouse effect. The Austrian campaigner won, but at the time of writing the
critics of McDonalds were still in court. (Lang 1996: 42–43)
The kind of repercussions described above is probably to be expected. As
suggested repeatedly throughout this article, corporate managers and direc-
tors have immense powers, and also vast resources at their hands, and they
can use these to circumvent the initiatives of investors or to try to put the
pressure back on the shareholder activists. However, this is something that
shareholder activists might have to accept if their campaigns are to become
really effective.
Of course, not all self-sacrificing stunts of activists will be effective in
getting powers outside the corporation to influence companies to change
their ways. It should be emphasised again that, given the available (lack of)
empirica l evidence, it is hard to say in any more detail w hat investors shou ld
do to make a considerable difference in terms of corporate practices or soci-
etal outcomes. Through devising a radically self-sacrificial activist cam-
paign and receiving help from powerful forces outside the corporate sphere,
however, perhaps even individual investors could be able to push for corpo-
rate change. At least if these campaigns are sufficiently well-planned and
carried out with sufficient efficiency.
Conclusions
According to most proponents of the SRI movement, investors who really
want to make the world a better place should become shareholder activists
and try to influence socially problematic companies «from within» to
change their ways. In this article we have discussed different suggestions
regarding what this recommendation might mean more exactly, and evalu-
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Joakim Sandberg
75
Changing the world through shareholder activism?
ated these suggestions critically. Unfortunately SRI proponents present little
empirical evidence of the efficacy of different kinds of shareholder activist
campaigns. Judging from certain general characteristics of the corporate
governance systems in place in different countries, however, it really seems
quite difficult for most investors to make a non-negligible difference by
taking a social stand in this way. The laws and power structures surround-
ing the decision making at corporate AGMs give a single investor so little
power that the standard actions of filing and voting on shareholder resolu-
tions seem to leave exceptionally little room for change and shareholder
activis ts shoul d most li kely seek a lternat ive w ays of tr ying to influen ce com-
panies.
Some of the suggestions that have been considered more promising are
the suggestions that investors could write letters to or contact institutional
investors and try to make them vote differently on resolutions; alternatively
they could send press releases to the media with extensive information sur-
rounding some morally problematic activities. Another suggestion is that
they could try to charge companies with unlawful behaviour and bring
them to court. Unfortunately, these suggestions plausibly would have to be
rather time-consuming and costly to be effective. They may also make
investors open to counter-charges from the companies in question, which
may be extremely detrimental to both the reputation and the wallet of both
individual and institutional investors. This raises the question of how pro-
bable is it that shareholder activists will see the proposed kind of radical
campaigns as attractive. In the end, however, it would seem like these are the
campaigns that both activists themselves and empirical researchers should
look more into. At least if the overall goal of SRI is to influence companies
and to thereby «change the world».
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Notes
1 For an in-depth treatment of the appeal to consistency, see Sandberg (2007).
2 In some countries, an extraordinary (or emergency) general meeting can also be cal-
led, but this is seldom done (cf. Maug & Rydqvist 2001).
3It may be noted that I use this term in a broad sense here, i.e. to refer to all kinds of
resolutions that shareholder activists may wish to introduce at corporate AGMs – in-
cluding proposals of directors and so on.
4 According to Karpoff et al. (1996: 393), for instance, ‘[t]here is no persuasive eviden-
ce that [corporate governance] proposals increase firm values, improve operating
performance, or influence firm policies’. See also Schepers (2003) for some critical
comments in this context.
5 It may be noted that I follow the main bulk of the SRI literature here and focus pri-
marily on Western countries with relatively well-functioning corporate governance
systems (like the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia). Obviously, the possi-
bilities for efficient shareholder activism are even worse in many other countries
where the corporate governance systems are quite different (cf. Sparkes 2002).
6 Since proposals should be filed at least 6 months prior to the AGM, in reality, inves-
tors need to have held the shares for at least 18 months. According to Lang (1996:
116), furthermore, ‘companies do not normally announce the actual date of the
AGM until a few weeks beforehand, thus making it very difficult to dovetail the two
dates (particularly since the company is unlikely to have ever received an indepen-
dent shareholders’ resolution before, and will almost certainly not welcome it)’.
7 According to some writers, failed resolutions may have additional possibilities of in-
fluencing managers if they reach the kind of figures indicated in the quotes above,
i.e. if they receive more than 3% or 10% of the votes. Under the U.S. corporate go-
vernance system, namely, a resolution which did not pass at an AGM can be put back
on the following year’s proxy ballot if it receives 3% of the votes the first year. In the
second year it is 6% and after that it is 10% (cf. Vogel 1978; Sparkes 2002).
8 According to Powers (1971: 93), it is actually unclear whether such co-ordinations
are legal – they may be in violation of anti-trust laws.
9 According to Vogel (1978: 94), for instance, ‘[t]he most important long-term impact
of the Campaign to Make General Motors Responsible was that it began to erode the
practice of institutional neutrality in stockholder elections’.
10 To these considerations, it may be added that corporate managers and directors of-
ten work closely together with institutional investors in drafting their resolutions
and setting their agenda, since they know that the institutional investors are the do-
minant owners of the companies and, thus, have the ability to dominate the votes at
the AGM. For this reason, I believe, institutional investors on their part are also more
likely to want to collaborate with management than with individual investors – es-
pecially shareholder activists who, as I have said, tend to be rather anti-management.
According to Strätling (2003: 76), for instance: ‘In order not to tarnish the reputation
of the companies they invest in, institutional investors are more likely to approach
members of the board directly in order to raise grievances than to resort to sharehol-
der proposals or to vote against recommendations of the board of directors.’
11 It may be noted that one empirical study (Carleton et al. 1998) has been conducted on
private negotiations between one of the largest pension funds in the U.S. and a number
of companies targeted by them on corporate governance issues. According to this study,
dialogue with managers was actually successful in over 90% of the cases. However, the
authors themselves concede that this figure probably is not generalisable, and that we
know very little about the average efficacy of dialogue with managers.
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