ABSTRACT
The interest in how shareholders engage with the management of their investee companies has been rekindled recently by the global financial crisis. The topic has however received little but growing academic attention, even though it has already been addressed by regulators in countries such as the UK and Japan, and is in discussion by supranational bodies such as the UN and the EU. Investors and management have different understandings of what engagement actually is, different preferences of how it should be carried out and different ideas of what successful engagement constitutes. This variance in understanding of shareholder engagement can also be seen in academic publications concerning the topic. The aim of this chapter is to better understand the plurality of meanings associated with terms related to shareholder engagement by various parties and to produce a theoretical basis for framing a definition, which is broadly approved.
