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Religious Organizations as Shareholders: Salience and Empowerment

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Shareholder Empowerment

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Abstract

While a traditional agency approach tends to assume that shareholder interests are aligned, research highlights that shareholders are heterogeneous and divided in their demands (Anabtawi 2007; Barnea & Rubin, 2010; Williams & Ryan, 2007). A complete discussion of shareholder empowerment would therefore not be possible without including the role of responsible investment, a well established investment approach that represents more than $3.7 trillion in the United States, or more than 11 percent of the US’s total assets under management (USSIF, 2012). Religious organizations (ROs) have been credited with being the pioneers of responsible investment (Kreander, McPhail, & Molyneaux, 2004; Sparkes & Cowton, 2004). While neither the largest nor the richest type of shareholder, they are the most active filers of social issue resolutions in the United States (Proffitt & Spicer, 2006), consistently filing around 25 percent of all shareholder proposals (Copland & O’Keefe, 2013). Increasing media awareness of aligning the values and mission of an organization with its investment principles has also raised the profile of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and ROs in investment (BBC, 2013; Guardian, 2013; Thomas, 2011).

I would like to express my thanks first, to Laura Berry, the ICCR, and all those members who generously offered their time and shared their insights; to the Responsible Investing Initiative at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation (3ci) for making this research possible; and to Tessa Hebb and Andreas Hoepner for their support and comments throughout the research and writing process. I am also grateful for the extensive and insightful reviews from the editors, which have been invaluable to the writing of this chapter. This work has partially been supported by Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca (SUR) of the Departament d’Economia i Coneixement (DEC) of the Government of Catalonia: AGAUR 2014FI_B2 0014.

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  1. Jennifer Goodman
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Maria Goranova Lori Verstegen Ryan

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© 2015 Jennifer Goodman

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Goodman, J. (2015). Religious Organizations as Shareholders: Salience and Empowerment. In: Goranova, M., Ryan, L.V. (eds) Shareholder Empowerment. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137373939_9

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