2004/09/01 by Kathleen Rehbein, Sandra Waddock, Samuel B. Graves · 312 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · #Accounting #Business #Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting #Corporate governance #Corporate social responsibility #Empirical evidence #Environmental Sustainability in Business #Finance #Management and Organizational Studies #Political science #Public relations #Shareholder #Stakeholder #Stakeholder theory
paper · doi:10.1177/0007650304266869
published in Business & Society 43(3), 239-267 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2004/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/05
This study provides preliminary empirical evidence that shareholder activists target companies because of their size as well as specific stakeholder-related practices. The data show that shareholder activists target companies with shareholder resolutions demanding changes in corporate behaviors for companies producing problematic products and where environmental concerns exist. Furthermore, companies in specific industries are targeted based on poor employee and community-related practices. Activists, that is, are selective in their targeting of companies, choosing the most visible (largest) companies and those whose practices raise specific issues of interest to society.