Social Shareholder Engagement: The Dynamics of Voice and Exit

Jennifer Goodman (), Céline Louche (), Katinka Cranenburgh () and Daniel Arenas ()

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, vol. 125, issue 2, 193-210

Abstract: Investors concerned about the social and environmental impact of the companies they invest in are increasingly choosing to use voice over exit as a strategy. This article addresses the question of how and why the voice and exit options (Hirschman 1970 ) are used in social shareholder engagement (SSE) by religious organisations. Using an inductive case study approach, we examine seven engagements by three religious organisations considered to be at the forefront of SSE. We analyse the full engagement process rather than focusing on particular tools or on outcomes. We map the key stages of the engagement processes and the influences on the decisions made at each stage to develop a model of the dynamics of voice and exit in SSE. This study finds that religious organisations divest for political rather than economic motives using exit as a form of voice. The silent exit option is not used by religious organisations in SSE, exit is not always the consequence of unsatisfactory voice outcomes, and voice can continue after exit. We discuss the implications of these dynamics and influences on decisions for further research in engagement. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Engagement process; Religious organisations; Responsible investment; Social shareholder engagement; Voice and exit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10551-013-1890-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Shareholder Engagement: The Dynamics of Voice and Exit (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:125:y:2014:i:2:p:193-210

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1890-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().