Shareholder communication and issue salience: corporate responses to ‘social’ shareholder activism

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on corporate engagement when shareholder activists raise concerns about social issues during annual shareholder meetings. Building upon strategic communication, social activism, and management research, the study combines Stakeholder Salience Theory (SST) and Issues Management Theory to explain corporate responses to shareholder activism. The researchers constructed a dataset of 844 shareholder actions in the U.S., all concerning environmental issues from 2006 to 2014. The analyses revealed that the urgency of the shareholder requests was the main driver of saliency. Moreover, shareholder activism strategies that engage corporations in private negotiations appeared to be effective in eliciting positive corporate responses. The findings contribute to applied communication theory and research by advancing SST with an issues management perspective in the context of shareholder activism.

KEYWORDS:

• Stakeholder salience
• activism
• shareholder communication
• issues management
• engagement
• corporate social responsibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Rule 14a-8(i) states that corporations may request the exclusion of proposals that are not a proper action for shareholders under the company’s state law, proposals that address ordinary business matters, proposals that would result in the violation of state or federal laws, proposals that are materially false or misleading, and proposals of limited relevance. See http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2007/34-56914fr.pdf