How Shifting from In-Person to Virtual-Only Shareholder Meetings Affects Shareholders’ Voice

How Shifting from In-Person to Virtual-Only Shareholder Meetings Affects Shareholders’ Voice

Miriam Schwartz-Ziv

Series number :

Serial Number: 
748/2021

Date posted :

April 12 2021

Last revised :

April 12 2021
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • shareholder meetings • 
  • shareholder votes • 
  • Shareholder Voice • 
  • virtual • 
  • in-person • 
  • COVID-19

Virtual-only shareholder meetings have become dramatically more common following Covid-19. Analysis of transcripts and recordings of in-person versus virtual-only shareholder meetings show that virtual-only meetings are shorter and dedicate less time to addressing shareholders’ concerns.

I construct a unique dataset documenting questions shareholders submitted at virtual-only shareholder meetings. Precisely when shareholders vote against management recommendation, indicating contention with management, firms are likely to limit shareholders’ voice: they ignore shareholders’ questions and explicitly limit the scope of questions addressed. Such actions are shown to limit the extent of communication at shareholder meetings.

 

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