ABSTRACT
To conclude this account of my investigation into the values of ordinary small shareholders and their investment decision making, I need first to discuss the results which emerged from the inquiry in light of both their theoretical contributions and their practical relevance. Not only will the knowledge gained from this inquiry be of use to both the corporate and investment worlds, it will also help small investors understand their investing selves, and how better to manage their portfolios, by becoming aware of the non-economic factors that guide their investment decisions. I follow this with an examination of the roles of small shareholders in the corporate landscape. In light of world-wide trends that foster individual share-ownership and the rise of small-shareholder activism, it is foreseeable that small shareholders – as pragmatic long-term investors – will have a strategic part to play in their companies' uptake of corporate social responsibility. The final part of this chapter is a discussion of how an inquiry of this kind can be extended to countries which have different cultures, and to the wider group of indirect shareholders who invest in mutual and superannuation funds.
