The Coming of Shareholder Stewardship: A Contextual Analysis of Current Anglo-American Perspectives on Corporate Governance

In recent years there have been two parallel discussions taking place in the US and in the UK about the role which institutional shareholders should play in governing the corporation. In the US this discussion is around the idea of shareholder empowerment, in the UK it is around shareholder stewardship. This paper assesses this discussion and its origins contextually and argues that increased shareholder involvement is a retrograde step which will only exacerbate the problems created by previous governance perspectives orientated around shareholder interests.