The many faces of investor activism, its evolution and prospects

The ongoing evolutionary process in corporate stock ownership and investors’ actual behavior as shareholders has turned shareholder activism into a multifaceted concept. After drawing a distinction between fundamentally activist and non-activist shareholders, and between the non-overlapping notions of activism and engagement, this Article analyzes activist-driven and non-activist-driven forms of institutions’ collective action. In order to stimulate and support mainstream institutional investors’ active ownership more effectively and promote non-activist stewardship as an actual alternative to activist-driven share ownership, collective engagement as a cost-effective stewardship tool needs to be incentivized by clarifying the grey areas still remaining within the relevant regulatory framework.