ABSTRACT
In many Asian countries, families have dominated the corporate world for years with no one daring to challenge them. Consequently, the concept of listening to shareholders is tricky. But, when the financial markets in the region collapsed, shareholders’ voices started to ring loud and clear the chaos. Meanwhile shareholders were shell-shocked following revelations that the Anglo-Dutch petroleum giant Royal Dutch/Shell had been exaggerating its oil reserves for several years. Private shareholders at Eurotunnel made French corporate history when they succeeded in ousting the entire board of a major company. Mondragon Corporation Cooperative is mentioned as ‘a spectacular example of a democratic enterprise, whose model will possibly be copied by other companies’. Increasingly, companies are recognising that shareholders, whether working side by side on the shop floor or scattered across the country voting by proxy, are demanding more of a say in how things are run.
